


The Life of Ecto-American Hero

by Wanu



Category: Danny Phantom, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Follows Plot, Roy is a jerk, Tags May Change, Underage Drinking, Writing Exercise, at least a little, because I want to write write that one scene I have in my head, expect Dani has crush on Roy, i need to learn how to write action scenes, if you count writing 26+ chapter story as writing exercise, kind of, not big thing, okay, there are relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-08 13:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15931721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanu/pseuds/Wanu
Summary: Ellie Fenton had a fairly unordinary life. She was her 7 years older cousin's adopted daughter, one of the heirs for the world's leading Ecto-Research and -Defence company and part time ghost hunter.Dani Phantom's life wasn't that normal either. She was one of the world greatest hero's, Phantom's, failed clone, protector of both ghosts and humans, not forgetting her tittle as the first known female sidekick.Balancing between these two busy lives had it's own challenges, but things were about to get even messier. Batman was creating a team for young superheroes. And Dani was going to be part of it.





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Thanks to my friend's advice, I decided to crosspost this story in here as well. Originally I planned to keep my long stories in FF and shorter ones in Ao3, but we'll see if this gets any views in here as well.
> 
>  
> 
> Dani (the clone) will be the MC of this story. The plot will follow heavily the plot of YJ season 1 (and 2, possibly 3) but I'll try to add scenes that are not from the series. This is because I'm partly using this type of re-written series story as writing exercise to practice writing action scenes (and my English).
> 
> I'm not native English speaker, so I apologize all grammar error in this and future chapters. If someone is interested in being a Beta for this story, please contact me.
> 
> I hope you will enjoy!
> 
> Also:  
> See the end of the chapter for more info about the universe and power levels this story will use.

Danny landed clumsily on the broken roof that had lost almost quarter of its original size. He was breathing heavily, trying his best to support the weight of the wounded ghost leaning on his side.

"Still in the world of the living, Johnny?" the halfa asked, helping the biker ghost to sit down so his back leaned against the concrete railing, while studying the oozing stump that had once been his right leg with worry.

Johnny led out a shaking laugh, trying his best hold his usual cocky smirk. "Why are you worrying so much about little scratch like this, punk?" the ghost raised the remains of his leg, as if trying to prove something to the teen in front of him, the immediately following spasm of pain probably making him to regret his decision. "Seriously," Johnny gritted his teeth, "this is nothing compared to what Kitty is going to do to me when she finds out I let that thing take a bite out of me."

Danny rolled his eyes, too tired to come up with any of his normal snarky comments, before moving his focus to dig through the small metal crate next to them, similar to those that could now be found on several other rooftops and alleys all around Amity Park. The boxes had been Jazz idea, something she had thought up around second day of the attack, making it easier to the defender teams to get first aid and food while trying to slow the monster down in hopes to give Danny's parents and the city's other sharper minds enough time to figure out the way to stop it.

"Do you think Kitty and I could buy a house from Amity Park? I mean, I don't think we have any money, but I could get a job and earn some." Johnny asked suddenly out of nowhere. "After this attack is over, of course."

"You are being delirious," Danny said seriously and pushed a bottle full of glowing ectoplasm to Johnny's hand, then moved back next to him, lifting the remains of the ghost's leg on his lap to bandage the thumb with more ease. It wouldn't be that good of help, but at least it would give Johnny more time and Danny could call someone to take him back to the Ghost Zone instead of taking him there himself.

The movement of leg made the ghost hiss out of pain. "Yeah, maybe a little… We could also get a kid. Kitty keeps saying she wants one of those when we 'calm down' a bit."

"Sure, why not," Danny sighed, deciding to humour the biker while continuing his own task. "Have you talked about the names yet?"

"Naah, but how about Black Cat? Get it? Because I'm all about bad luck and Kitty is well… my kitty." Johnny chuckled and made that cat paw thing with his free hand to emphasize his point. "Or maybe not. She has always liked fancier names." Johnny fell quiet, staring the sky above them and for a moment Danny thought he had finally passed out. "How do you say Black Cat in French?"

"Sorry Johnny, can't speak French to safe my life," the halfa tried his best to keep his tone light and not to focus how his gloves were slowly turning damp from warm ectoplasm. Johnny's own answer was just a vague grunt and a long sip from the bottle Danny had given to him before turning his gaze up to follow how white fluffy clouds above them continued their travel over the bright blue sky.

At that point Danny had already finished his task and sat down in between the ghost and 'the loot box', a nickname that some of Danny's fellow gaming nerds had started to use and somehow turned it to better known name than Jazz's official 'first-aid, tool, refreshment and communication container' or FATRC-container for short. Danny peeked inside the still open box and picked up some dry meat alongside a small walkie-talkie like device which emergency button he pushed. It should send a signal back to Fenton Works and hopefully someone would come to collect Johnny and Danny could return to distract the monster for another three hours before his sift would end.

Speaking of the monster… Danny glanced towards the direction where the Axion Labs had once been, his mouth full of salty and, well… dry, meat. The thing had hardly managed to move more than a step during the time Danny had spent taking the care of his wounded ally, but even that was too much. Despite the small army of both ghosts and armed amateur ghost hunters (aka every citizen of Amity Park who was old enough to handle Fenton Work's anti-ghost weapons) buzzing around it, the huge embodiment of ectoplasm had already managed to make its way through the first couple city blocks and if they didn't get a miracle soon, it would take it only a week or less to reach Fenton Works and the ghost portal in it. The horror stories his parents had told him during those hurried morning briefings were more than enough to make Danny to shiver whenever he thought what could and would happen if the ectoplasm eating monster ever get access to the Ghost Zone's endless supply of natural, pure ectoplasm. It was already bad enough that it seemed to be able to absorb basic ecto-blasts and even eat ghosts, gaining more size and strength every time it did so, but after that… It would literally be unstoppable.

In a way, it already was. No one knew where the monster had come from or even what it was. It was made out of ectoplasm, it was sure, but it wasn't a ghost. According his parents' sensors, the energy signature it had, was a completely different compared to any ecto-lifeform they had ever seen. And then there were those worrisome reports all around the world about similar monsters made from varied materials they consumed in purpose to get stronger. And since everyone was busy with their own monsters, the world had no time or resources to help Amity Park more than it already had with sending food and medical held alongside weapons and ammo that had turned out to be completely useless against the monster. Thanks to its ectoplasmic body, anti-ghost weaponry was at least able to slow it down a bit, as well as the most of the ghosts' 'special' attacks, but nothing had really hurt it. Even Vlad's 'masterplan', which had led the now former mayor to reveal his double identity, had ended up being a disaster and cost time they could have used much more wisely.

"Danny!" the voice of familiar girl brought the halfa back from his dark thoughts and he turned to look at his heavily breathing female clone slash cousin who had just landed on the roof top. Being both physically and theoretically clearly under sixteen - the age the town council had ordered as minimum age for those who wanted to join to fight against the monster (mostly because the majority of the town's best ghost hunters hadn't even celebrated their 17th birthday) - the Ghost Girl had taken the role of the messenger and delivery girl together with an unofficial tittle of Fenton family's bodyguard. Even though the girl complained more than once a day how unfair this arrangement was and how she missed all the fun, her job had been all-important for their survival. Not even mentioning how much easier it was for Danny to breath when he knew for sure one more of his loved ones was safe from the monster's attack. At least for now.

Danny swallowed the food down and lifted his now green and grey glove as a greeting "Hi Dani," the older halfa attended to smile so she wouldn't think he was the one got hurt then poked Johnny's side. "Hey, 13, wake up. Your ride is here."

The ghost muttered something incoherent about his bike but did not open his eyes, causing a cold worry to tighten its hold around Danny's innards for a second, until the sound of loud snoring revealed that the ghost was just decided to have a little nap to save his energy.

"What?" Dani confused voiced drew Danny's attention back at her just in time to see the girl kneel in front of him. It was only then when she seemed to notice the biker ghost and in what shape his leg was. "Yeah, I'll do that just in sec," she grimaced in disgust before she pushed the radio she had been carrying with her to Danny's hands, her whole being radiating excitement and dared he say, hope. "Maddie send me to bring you this. You can't believe what they are telling in the news!"

Curious to find out what had lifted his cousin's mood so, Danny turned the radio on, which had already set to play the news channel, filling the air with much more cheerful voice of some reporter than Danny had heard for days.

_"-Washington DC and Green Lantern of Coast City have just managed to defeat the fire creature terrorising Paris. The witnesses have told about the use of similar device as Batman of Gotham City and Martian Manhunter of Chicago were caught to use when immobilizing Carolina's tree monster less than 20 minutes ago, supporting the theory that these seven heroes are indeed working together. After this latest victory, the only known monster still mobile are the slime creature of Amity Park and the golden bird seen in several countries in Afri-."_

"Hey look, we have birds too" Johnny's raspy words caught two halfas' attention. They had been drinking every single word the reporter let out from his mouth like sponges, growing smiles on their lips, but now their eyes snapped to stare up the sky, just in time to see something blue and red fly over their heads.

"Wait. Was that…?"

"Superman." Danny whispered, his eyes huge and full of almost childish awe when he recognized his role model and idol whose example had driven him to continue keeping Amity Park safe despite how badly he had messed up and how harshly people had judged him. What was he doing in Amity Park?

Dani flew up in the air, trying to see better what the Man of Steel was trying to do to the monster. "There is some red blur spinning really fast around the creature. Wait… I think it's creating a torna-. Butter Biscuits! It's the Flash!"

"What?!" with one jump Danny was floating next to his cousin, just in time to see how the Scarlet Speedster from neighbouring state caused the already wobbly pile of ectoplasm turn into corkscrew like spiral out of the strength of the self-made tornado, making it unable to move. Well, he saw a red blur to do it, but Danny had seen enough news to recognize one of the Flash's trademark tricks.

The girl hugged Danny's arm tightly and started to tug him towards the battle that had just turned in their favour, "Danny, this is our chance. We need to go and help them," she almost laughed to her cousin's still awestruck expression as he stared at Superman, who had stopped to float in front of the creature's face, the object on the hero's hands way too small to be seen as nothing but shapeless spot from there where the halfas were watching.

Dani had to call his name couple more times before the Ghost Boy was able to snap out of his dazed state and think rationally.

"No, you have to take Johnny back to the Zone and tell my parents what is going on here," he gave a genuinely apologetic smile when the younger halfa voiced her loud complains. "You won't miss anything big. Look, whatever they are doing is already working."

And indeed, it was. The monster's body was started dropping huge chunks of ectoplasm off from its body with increasing speed and the unnatural screams of rage and pain had replaced the sounds of firing weapons that had been through their city apart way too long.

Still, Dani pouted "But I wanted to meet the Flash…" she whined, and for once she truly looked like a ten-year-old she physically was, making Danny to smile and ruffle her hair.

"I will get his autograph for you if he sticks around long enough," he promised. This didn't seem to please Dani that much, but she still let out a defeated sigh, then floated down so she could clumsily lift Johnny up from the roof where he had once again fallen in deep slumber.

When Dani had flown far enough to ensure Danny she was indeed going all way to the Fenton Works and not planning to drop poor Johnny on some other rooftop, the halfa turned his eyes back towards the already almost finished 'battle' and took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

"Okay. You can do this. They are just people like you. And adults… And probably thinking you are just a kid playing hero… No, not going there. Just be calm." he muttered to himself while flying to the direction where he had last seen Tucker. Even though it hurt his pride to admit it, Danny was sure there wasn't much he could do to help the two older heroes. He had already tried his everything to stop it, and now when the Flash had even managed to stop the monster's march through the city, there really was no point to go shoot it with ecto-blast the creature would just absorb anyway. Plus, with his luck, his help would only end up ruining the two adult heroes' plan.

"Da- Phantom! Down here!" the halfa looked down and saw his best friend standing on the top of a dumpster surrounded by several other familiar faces. They must have come here to seek shelter from the strong winds the Flash's tornado had caused, and which were still ruffling the hairs of those closest of the alley's entrance.

"Tucker," Danny really tried to hide how relieved he was to see his best friend mostly unharmed in presence of humans who still had no idea who their ghostly protector really was.

"Did you see him? It's Superman. The. Freaking. Superman!" the self-claimed technology expert pointed up above the shrinking monster where the Man of Steel was still floating.

"And the Flash," Kwan piped in with same glee in his voice. The whole football team had been a huge help with defending Amity Park and most of them had learned how to handle the anti-ghost weapons almost terrifyingly fast, making Danny more than happy that none of them hadn't shown much interest towards hunting ghosts during the past few years. On the other hand, there had been couple times when the Team Phantom had fought alongside their fellow students, so maybe Danny shouldn't have been that surprised.

"Anyway…" Tucker cleared his throat and returned to type his PDA on which he had at some point managed to paint a camouflage. "That device he is using is sending some sort energy wave which is forcing, whatever thing keeping the monster together is, out." the teen looked back up to his friend, grinning like Cherice Cat, "I don't know, nor care, how in the world they managed to figure out the right frequency and all that so fast, but I think they might actually be able to stop that things for good."

"Oh, they have already done it" Danny lifted the radio he was still carrying on his hand and tossed it to Star. "News are going crazy about how Martian Manhunter and other vigilantes have been defeating the monsters with similar devices all around the world."

The blonde girl turned the radio's volume higher, so everyone could hear how the reporter was already babbling what was happening in Amity Park and about four hero team up in Africa where the golden bird was turned out to be far faster opponent than the one their city had been dealing with.

"So, it will be over soon?" the Lunch Lady asked from no one in particular as she stared how the last pieces of ectoplasm where thrown away by the power of the tornado, leaving behind only a weird, shimmering ball of golden energy. As its last desperate act, the energy ball shot up to the sky, and for a couple seconds it looked almost like a silent lightning had struck in the middle of the Flash's tornado, only to reserved direction.

The both ghosts and humans watched in awe how Superman shot up to chase after the energy creature, soon disappearing behind the clouds and probably even out of the atmosphere. Then the heavy, expecting silence fell above them.

When there was no any explosions or bright flash of lights, Danny, among the few others, teared his eyes back at the former battlefield where the tornado had already slowed down enough them to see the red clad human like figure running literally circles, before the person finally stopped and started to swipe the glowing goo out of his suit.

"Should we do something?" Kwan's voice whispered somewhere behind him and soon Danny could feel the multiple pairs of eyes staring at him, waiting him to make the first move.

"Dude, it's okay." Tucker placed his hand on Danny's shoulder, for once not caring of all those reasons why they needed to keep their distance, since being there for his best friend was sometimes more important than keeping people from wondering. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

The halfa patted the human teen's hand, a wordless thank you from his concern, and straightened his back. He was the hero of this town and therefore, by unwritten rules, it was his job to deal with the other heroes. Slowly, but not too slow so the man in the red suit wouldn't think he was hesitating or afraid, Phantom flew out from the safety of the alley to the light of the cloudy afternoon. He was already able to see the white lenses of the Flash's cowl when the other man finally noticed his approach and the Scarlet Speedster dropped the handful of ectoplasm he had just gathered from his suit, adopting a wide smile.

"Phantom, I assume," the speedster's voice was carefree and he seemed genuinely happy to meet the Ghost Boy, helping Danny to forget at least some of his nervousness and relax his shoulders he hadn't even realised to be so stiff. "I'm the Flash, from Central City," then he seemed to notice something behind the halfa, turning his expression a bit more sheepish. "And sorry about the mess. This slime wasn't as heavy as I imagined"

"Ectoplasm," Phantom found himself correcting as he landed in front of the older hero and shook the hand the man was offering. "And yeah, I know who are. It's an honour to finally meet you in person."

Danny's words seemed to surprise Flash for a second until he suddenly let out an amused laugh. "Honoured? To meet me?" the red suited hero shook his head. "Well, you surely are the first colleague of mine I have heard to say that."

"Well, umm…" the halfa rubbed his neck, trying to keep himself from blushing out of embarrassment. And had he heard correctly? Did the Flash really saw him as colleague? As in his equal?

The man seemed to realise what was going on between the teen's ears "Don't worry, kid" Flash chuckle and winked. "I'm fan of your work too."

That surely made Danny's eyes pop out of his head, "Really?" he was now completely sure the man was joking. Danny knew better than well what kind of reputation Phantom had in media and how sometimes his battles with other ghosts caused more damage than good. There was no way that Central City's bellowed hero, who literally had his own museum and day named after him, would be 'a fan' of Phantom's work.

"Of course," even with that goofy smile of his, Flash somehow managed to make his response to sound like the most obvious thing in the world. "You have been around as long as I have, and you are what? Nineteen?" the red hero froze for a second staring at Phantom a calculating look in his eyes. "I think… You are not really a spirit of dead kid like they say, right?" without giving the teen time to answer or correct his mistake with the age the man continued. "Anyway. You have keeping this city in pretty good shape considering how often you have some weird accident here. You even managed to get your city out of alternate dimension! How cool is that!"

"You have also done a remarkable job with slowing down the Appellaxian," another, deeper voice joined in their conversation and when looking up, Phantom saw how his idol had returned from his chase, the object he had used to separate the energy creature from its ectoplasmic host body, soundly secured under his arm.

"Hi Supes! Made sure that the ball of sunshine isn't going to mess with our planet anytime soon?" Flash greeted his ally then hurried to whisper to now officially awestruck Danny's ear "Don't worry, I'll introduce you two."

"I-" the halfa nervously cleared his throat "I didn't do it alone. Every human and ghost played just as big or even bigger role in defending Amity Park than me."

Superman, now fully landed and standing next to the Scarlet Speedster, nodded his head in approval, his posture so self-confident and powerful that there wasn't even slightest hint of doubt in Danny's mind why this man in front of him was already known as the greatest hero of the world. How in the world Danny's future-self had managed to defeat this almost god like alien was beyond the halfa's understanding, but he was sure it hadn't been a fair fight.

"But you were the one who gave them hope and inspirited them to defend their homes. It is a feat none of us managed to accomplish and nothing to be ashamed of. And if I have learned anything from this attack on Earth, it's that putting your bride aside and admitting you need others help sometimes demands more inner strength than marching to the battle on your own."

To Danny, it sounded like Superman was leaving something big out of the story, but it was easy to let it slip. He had just been complimented by Superman, the very same man who had been the first superhero for almost fifty years, starting the new generation of the heroes in wake of his own simple desire to do good for his home planet. It was a moment so unreal Danny was almost certain he was dreaming and he would probably have made a completely fool out of himself if Flash hadn't decided to step in right then.

"Phantom, meet Superman. Superman, Phantom." Flash's words sounded like they had come somewhere faraway and Danny had to almost physically slap himself to move when his idol offered his hand.

"It's a pleasure." his words were genuine, just like the speedster's before him, and when Danny shook his hand, the halfa just knew this was a moment he would return in his memories many times later in his life. He just hoped the grin on his face wasn't making him to look like a complete idiot.

And somewhere there, beyond the boundaries of the dimensions, in the lair where the time itself lost its meaning, a lone figure followed this historical scene through the veil of time. His whole figure was surrounded by aura of someone who had patiently witnessed the birth of the masterpiece from the something that others had once considered as ugly and twisted.

If there was anyone in the known universe who knew with all certainty what this handshake truly meant, it was him.

It was the first light of the new dawn: the dawn of the golden age of the heroes. From this moment now on, young Daniel would travel towards the greater destiny than just protecting his own little city from the creatures of the Ghost Zone. It would still take some years until he would be ready to join the newly established team – no, the League- of heroes. And even though the young man did not know it yet, by just defeating his fears and meeting these two men, Daniel had chosen a future he could not escape like the one he had fight against in the past.

The gears of the ancient clock tower turned and one by one, the dark windows around the old man lighted up, showing the greatest victories and the most painful defeats the Phantom of Amity Park would face, not forgetting the moments of personal happiness and sadness; everything this still wet eared hero would accomplish, changing the future in the ways only this all-knowing being knew. There were still infinite number of crossroads and endings, but the boy had already managed to find his way out of the labyrinth and the ageless ghost trusted in the man whose destiny he had chosen to change despite it breaking all the rules binding him. It had been, as humans liked to say, a leap of faith from his part and now when this lone watcher saw the future he had foreseen eons before the birth of these three men, the ghost knew he had made the right choice.

But with every new beginning, came the end of another tale. Daniel wouldn't need his guidance anymore; the boy was safe from the shadow of the dark future he would sill fear as long as the halfa had time left in this world. And even if he would come to seek the old ghost's advice and help, he couldn't, nor wouldn't, give the hero any other kind of help than something he had already destined to offer.

The historical scene ended, and the cloaked child smiled as he saw how the white-haired girl flew across the clearing to the side of the man she still refused to call anything else but her cousin. She pushed the notebook she had brought with her on the surprised looking speedsters face and the other two men laughed to her child's enthusiasm.

Yes, Daniel's future might be now out of his reach, but this young woman had yet to choose the destiny she would follow. The time had so much to give to her, but only number of those fates could be accomplished within this universe. And even the all-seeing being like Clockwork could not be sure which one of these roads would be the one the world under his care would witness. All he could do was to watch and wait.

But for now, everything was the way it was supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some facts so we all are on same page.
> 
> Danny and Dani's powers:
> 
> First of all. I will not give Danny any new powers, nor Dani any powers that Danny doesn't have. If I end up changing the later one at some point of this project, then sorry. This in very unlikely though.
> 
> Canon Danny is already very strong compared to DC heroes (probably near Superman level and he is supposed to be "the strongest hero" of DCU) so in this fic I have made him in some ways weaker than he is in his own show and given the ghosts extra weaknesses.
> 
> If you think they are too weak, be free to critique, but personally I think Phantoms are this way more balanced members of their respected teams.
> 
> Super strength: Hartman has said that as ghost, gravity doesn't effect on Danny, allowing him to fly and lift heavy objects. Therefore, in this story, gravity manipulation is the power that allow Phantoms (aka Danny and Dani) to lift much heavier objects than other heroes with same strength level.
> 
> Without the help of the gravity manipulation Danny can lift (in his ghost form) about 590 kg (1300 lb) making him slightly stronger than the strongest known human (578 kg or 1268 lb). Dani being A younger and B female can only lift around 320 kg (around 700 lb).
> 
> With the help of the gravity manipulation both Phantoms are able to lift full schoolbuses with ease (like Danny does in show) and maybe more.
> 
> Speed: Danny's current top flying speed is around 320 km/h (200mph) while Dani can only fly 240 km/h (150 mph). Top speed takes a lot of energy, so they don't usually fly that fast.
> 
> Ecto-blasts: My personal headcanon is that natural ecto-blasts have a bigger effect on ghosts than living creatures (their aura/life energy is protecting them or something). Because of this, if normal living being gets hit by ghost's ecto-blast, it won' hurt much more than getting hit by football (or soccer ball to those who speak American English) kicked from close distance.
> 
> If as strong ecto-blast hits a ghost… Well imagine the same scenario but the football is replaced with glowing hot cannonball.
> 
> Both Danny and Dani can use the basic powers seen in the show like invisibility, intangibility, overshadowing and cryokinesis.
> 
> Dani can't use Ghost Wail and has yet to master duplication (she can create herself extra head but that's pretty much it)
> 
> Weaknesses: All ghosts are naturally weak against the other ghosts' attacks, electricity (the ones with tech/electricity based powers are more resistant) and magic. The modern anti-ghost inventions are the first "unnatural" weakness but some people count them under the same category as electricity or ghosts' attacks even though the ectoplasm they use is synthesis.
> 
> Ages/Time line:
> 
> DP-series: Fall 2000 to Spring 2003 (PP replaced with Appellaxian invasion/prologue)
> 
> At the beginning of YJ Danny (and Sam + Tucker) are 24 years old, making them as old as Black Canary (that was an accident, I swear).
> 
> Dani is physically 17, really 8 yo (Vlad created her at spring 2002)
> 
> Jazz is 26
> 
> Vlad, Maddie and Jack are 54 (Vlad become halfa 1981 at age of 25)


	2. Grounded

_Seven years later_

It was a warm and sunny summer afternoon. The kind of day people wanted to have during the Fourth of July so they could celebrate it with their families on picnic or got to beach or carnival or whatever their traditions were.

But not all people were as lucky as others. Some people still needed to go work, most of them being doctors and fire fighters or in other 'in case something bad happens' type of jobs (or their bosses were just jerks), while some of them were just plain sick or didn't just care and locked themselves inside their rooms to play video games just like in any other day.

Then there were peoples like her…

"Today, those lucky ones who decided to honour the Fourth of July by visiting at the Hall of Justice, were able to witness something historical," the news reporter chirped with (obviously fake) excited tone while unprofessional looking video clip, probably filmed with some money hungry civilian's phone, played behind her. "For the first time in the Justice League's history, its four members: Batman, Flash, Aquaman and Green Arrow, were seen to walk inside the Justice League's headquarters with the company of their young protégées: Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad and Speedy, respectively. The reason behind the sidekicks unexpected visit is still unclear, but it has been speculated to be somehow connected to these young heroes' training towards the full League membership."

"However," the woman continued, still as cheerful as ever, "As it can be seen, neither of Phantoms took present in this unusual event. This has awoken some very interesting questions about the rights of both Ecto-Americans and female heroes in the ranks of the Justice League. Is it just coincidence that the two ghost heroes and the only known female sidekick were left out from this symbolically important event or was this the League's way to show their opinion towards the rights of minorities? To get some light to these questions we have now video connections with the secretary of Ecto-Americans party; Mister Vulture, and Professor Maria Janson, from Harvard's University, who is specialised with the history of female heroes. Now mister Vulture, could you please tell us what is your opinion of –"

The screen of the television turned black as a young man in his mid-twenties turned it off and dropped the remove on the couch, letting out a loud annoyed groan. "They just couldn't find anyone else?" he asked from no one particularly, referring to the green ghost vulture wearing bright red fez on his head whose face he had just seen on TV.

"I told you that something like this would happen," the teen sitting next to him commented smugly. She brushed strands of unruly black hair, very similar to man's own, out of her eyes before continuing. "But if we leave right now, we still might have a chance to make it to the Hall before others leave."

The look he gave to her as answers was clearly not impressed, "Nice try Dani, but you are still grounded."

"But Daa'ad!" she whined back, too desperate to care if she sounded like a spoiled child while doing so. "Today is _THE_ Day! The day when all of us were supposed to take our first step towards being full-fledged members of the League. Are you truly so heartless that you are going to deny something this important from your own daughter."

The man just continued to stare at her with blank expression, clearly either not caring or understanding how serious matter she was talking about.

"Argh! This is so unfair!" Dani cried out of frustration, throwing herself dramatically on the couch's cushions. "Here I am, my powers stolen, imprisoned in my very own home while my friends can see headquarter of the Justice League. Oh, why, why the life has to be so cruel to me."

Rolling his eyes, her father pushed himself up from the couch, stretching his arms over his head, pushing up until hearing a satisfying pop. "You should have thought that before letting the ghost kids in your grandparents' lab when you were supposed be babysitting them," he commented with slightly amused voice, ignoring the murderous glares his daughter was shooting at him under her arm. "Besides, you know that Batman only gave you guys a permission to see the Hall, not the Watchtower."

"That's not the point!" she moaned. Why all adults had to be so dump? "It's all about showing the world that we are not just sidekicks. They will finally see you guys are taking us seriously and believe that we are just as good heroes as you are. Besides," she added "Someone should be there to keep Roy in check. Unless Oliver managed to grow a pair overnight and tell Roy what is going to happen like he was supposed to, Roy will flip when he finds out that he isn't allowed to see the Watchtower. He hasn't been talking about anything else since Arrow told him about your stupid satellite."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the man chuckled, teasing glimmer sparking in his eyes as he moved his hand to ruffle his baby girl's hair. "I forgot that someone was more interested in hanging out with her favourite archer than visiting in some old tourist trap."

Now it was Dani's turn to roll her eyes as she slapped her father's hand away. "How many times I have to tell you. Roy and I are just friends and I don't have any," she made air quotes, adding as much sarcasm in her voice as possible, "'feelings' towards him as you like to put it."

"Oh, really?" Danny bent over her head, a smug smirk playing on his face. "And how come you are always drooling after his butt and blushing brighter than tomato whenever someone catches you doing so?"

The girl just gave the man bored look, and if a small blush crept on her cheeks, her pride wouldn't allow her to admit it. "You must have hit your head harder than I thought during the last ghost attack, old man, because you are being completely delirious."

"Me? Old?!" Danny cried out of mock shock, dramatically pressing hand over his heart as if girl's words had psychically wounded him. But soon his expression turned into an impish grin. "I'm going to make you regret you ever said that."

Before Dani had even time to think that running as fast as she could might be a good idea, the older halfa had already jumped on top of her, his fingers mercilessly tickling the girl's sides. Dani let out a startled scream, helplessly trying to free herself from her father's grip, shouting protests and begging him to stop whenever she managed to hold her laugher long enough to speak.

"Danny, stop torturing our daughter," a feminine voice called from the direction of the door. The man's head popped up immediately after hearing the voice, and he turned to look at his wife with sheepish smile, purposely giving Dani an opportunity to squirm out of his crap. She ran to the safety behind her mother's back where she childishly stuck her tongue to him. The end result looked quite comical, the teen being already at least head taller than the older woman, not that neither of them seemed to mind.

"How was your shopping trip, Sam?" Danny asked happily, once again completely ignoring the girl's action and walked across the room to pick the bags Sam had brought with her and peaked inside. "Found anything fun?"

Sam rolled her eyes to her husband's immaturity but still cupped his cheek and placed a soft kiss on it. "It was okay. Saw Valerie, but she was too busy giving speed ticket to some reckless driver, so I didn't stay to talk with her."

"Poor guy." Danny chuckled while carrying the bags towards the kitchen. "Val is definitely the strictest officer I have ever met."

"And frighteningly effective too!" Dani added shivering in fear, daring to move out from behind her human shield beside her mother now when her father had something else to do "Seriously, I have never seen Grandpa Jack drive as slow as last week when he picked me up from the mall."

"That is probably because Maddie got tired after his five hundredth ticket and threatened to ban him from going anywhere near the labs if he gets one more," Sam told her while the family of three made their way in the kitchen where the father and daughter started to empty the shopping bags and Sam took a pee-line to the sink, filling the glass she had left next to it earlier that day with water.

The peaceful family life hadn't chance to continue much longer before the sound of the Danny's phone interrupted them. The three pairs of eye shared worried glance, recognizing the ringtone Danny used only for special few numbers only and without further hesitation the man dug the silver phone out of his pocket.

"Phantom." Danny answered with serious tone, bringing the ghostly echo into his voice his ghost form naturally possessed. "Okay. I will be there in ten." He told the caller after getting a short explanation and ended the call.

"It was Clark." Danny explained to the two women, not bothering to use the older hero's more commonly known name in the presence of his family. "Apparently Wotan has managed to get some kind of powerful magic amulet on his hands and is now trying to use it to block the sun. Zatara is requesting full League response."

Serious look in her eyes, Sam placed her glass back on the counter and moved to tie her hands around Danny's neck before kissing him gently. "Be careful, okay? Don't let any spells to hit you like last time"

"Aren't I always?" her husband asked the goofy grin returning before placing another soft kiss against both Sam's lips and her almost unobtrusive baby bump.

"Can I come too?" Dani asked hopefully, eager to take part of the action.

"Sorry Elle," Danny chuckled while two bright, but familiar rings travelled over his body, changing his hair to white, eyes to glowing neon green colour and his clothes into his characteristic black and white suit that hadn't experienced that many changes during his decade long career as a hero. Sure, he had made some upgraded, so the suit was now made out of more sturdy material with extra armour around the vital areas. He had even got a cool new unity belt -which was his and his parents' own design- all thanks to his fellow Leaguers' -mainly Batman's- 'friendly advices' and to ease at least some of his loved ones' worries. "But this mission is League members only."

"Besides," he continued and ruffled once more his, thankfully still shorter, daughter's hair "You are still grounded."

After saying this, the Phantom turned himself intangible and disappeared through the ceiling in the sky of the Amity Park.

"And it's still unfair..." the Ghost Girl muttered bitterly under her breath while kicking some non-exciting dust on the floor.

"And I think that if you won't stop complaining about it, those Spectral Inhibitor Bracelets will stay a week longer than they were meant to," Sam announced and continued Danny's earlier task of placing the foods to their rightful places from now almost empty bag. "Did you clean your room yet?"

"Well no, but..."

"Then go to do it," Sam cut her excuses short and turned look at her daughter teasingly. "You are ready before dinner and I won't tell Speedy you are technically only eight-years-old."

"Moooom!" Dani facepalmed. "Not you too!"

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The morning of the fifth of July started like any other morning in the Fenton household. Dani woke up soon after the eight o'clock to the smell of delicious breakfast her father must be preparing downs stairs. After all, it was a well-known fact that Samantha Fenton wouldn't get up willingly before noon unless she absolutely had to. At early days of Sam and Danny's life together under the same roof, Danny had been a terrible cook and Dani had more often woken up to a bitter smell of burning toast than anything eatable, but now, after three years of happy marriage, the Amity Parks' ghostly hero had managed to defeat his greatest enemy of all time: the stove.

After a long yawn, Dani jumped out of her bed and started to make her way downstairs, not bothering to change out of her pyjamas, silently wondering if her dad had managed to make it back in one piece, even though the familiar scents should be a good enough proof of that. It was true that as halfas, they both shared an unusually fast healing factor compared to average humans, but villains like Wotan were callable to cause some very severe wounds or even destroy full ghosts with their magic, not even mentioning the damage they could possibly do to half ghosts like Dani and her father.

When she reached to the living room, Dani ears picked up voices coming from the kitchen that, to her surprise, sounded like both of her parents were up. Their tones were hushed, almost like they feared someone to eavesdrop their conversation, making the whole thing feel even more suspicious. Carefully, so her parents wouldn't hear her, Dani started to sneak towards the kitchen's open doorway, using the limited tricks she had picked up from her more human friends to compensate her current lack of powers.

What? It was her job in this house to give reasonable reasons to the adults' everlasting paranoia.

"...luckily Kid Flash offered to take him in, so the poor boy didn't have to sleep in the Hall next three days until Bats makes his decision," Dani heard her father to explain tiredly, hint of something darker in his voice, as if he was upset about something or someone.

"You do know I would have been completely okay with it if you had brought him to live with us, right?" Sam spoke with that same sad tone, causing Dani to become even more worried than she already was. Had someone died during the yesterday's mission? The boy her parents were talking about must have lost his home because he had gone to live with Wally, and only Leaguers who lived with kids were Batman, her dad and Green Arrow, and apparently, Batman was still okay, so it only left... Oh no. Roy.

"Of course I know that." Danny answered to his wife's question with frustrated sigh. "It's just...As much as I hate to admit it; I kind of understand why Clark did what he did." Dani raised her eyebrows out of confuse when she heard the Kryptonian's name to been mentioned. What had Superman done? Was he the one who killed Oliver? No, that couldn't be right. There was a good reason why other the Leaguers had given Superman the nickname the 'big blue boy scout'.

"Danny!" the shock was easy to hear from Sam's gasp. "How can you say something like that? He is not any different from your own daughter." Okay... Did her mom just compare her to Roy or Ollie? The later one would be really weird, not mentioning how Dani would have more than several objections against the claim. Not that she had anything against the archer or anything… She just wasn't fond on the rich men with beards in general.

"That is the point." the way Danny said the words was enough to Dani to know her father was currently pulling his hair out of frustration, a habit he showed whenever facing some problem that made him feel hopeless. "You remember how Dani acted while she was under Vlad's influence. All he needed to do was to tell her couple lies and she was ready to do anything he asked from her just because she didn't know any better. And we are now talking about a Kryptonian clone who has been raised in sixteen weeks under some weird genetic experiments' constant mind control. Who knows what kind of propaganda and code words Cadmus has managed to plant in his brain. Heck, the boys even said that Superboy attacked on them when they first freed him. And as much as I hate to say it: I simply can't take the risk he might do the same to you or Ellie while I'm gone. Maybe, after the boy has proven himself to be trustworthy, we can start asking him to come to dinners or something like that, so he and Ellie can hang out together. But right now it's just too early, and we know too little about this whole situation, so I could fully trust him."

Behind the wall Dani gritted her teeth when her own origins were brought up. She knew that she had helped to capture Danny and did some other terrible things while she had still believed Vlad had truly loved her and was genuinely trying to save her life. Danny had still forgiven her crimes and given her a chance to become her own person; not just a failed copy and now hearing that the man who was more or less like father to her still carried suspicious towards all clones because of her did hurt more than she liked to admit...

Wait a minute!

"Superman has a clone!?" Dani shouted and jumped out of her hiding place, scaring the two adults who had been sitting on the opposite sides of the table, holding their hands just like two lovers from cheesy romantic movie.

"Good morning to you too, Danielle," Sam greeted with fake happy voice that reminded the girl too much of Pamela, while her dad just laughed sheepishly like a kid who had been caught his hand in the cookie jar.

"Why didn't you tell me that the League has found other clones?" the girl demanded, her hands crossed over her chest and foot tapping against the floor.

"We only found him yesterday. Well technically today, since it was already past midnight when boys destroyed Cadmus, but..." Danny explained awkwardly holding his hands up in defence.

"Boys destroyed Cadmus!" Dani shouted again, even though she had no idea what Cadmus even was -it sounded cool though- then muttered quietly under her breath. "I knew I should have been there."

Shaking her head, Sam drew a chair next to her and tapped it. "I think it's better if you sit down so your dad can explain from the beginning what happened after he left."

Frowning, the young heroine walked next to the table and sat in between Danny and Sam before crossing her arms again and gave the two adults an expecting look.

"It's a quite long story." Danny warned her. "And I think there are some thinks you won't like to hear."

"We will see that," she snorted, still a bit huffy. She raised her eyebrow when the adults changed a worried glance but finally the older halfa decided to drop the biggest bomb.

"Well first of all… Roy quit his and Oliver's partnership."

"He did WHAT!" Dani screamed out of disbelief and fury, jumping up from her chair and slammed her hands against the table's surface.

Sighing Sam rubbed her temples while Danny was trying his best to calm the raging girl down. She was already halfway out of the door, claiming only to go and fetch her phone so she could give 'those idiot arrowheads' couple well-chosen words.

"This is going to be a looooong morning..." She muttered tiredly taking a long ship of strong coffee from her huge, purple mug.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It took almost an hour from Danny to explain what had happened the last night, partly because he was occasionally interrupted by Dani's berating convulsions towards her friends' stupidity and finally, when she heard about Superboy's fate, bashing Superman with so outrageous swearwords Sam threatened to ground her permanently in the thermos if she used that kind of language ever again. Where she had learned even half of those words was a mystery to the two adults, but they had a couple good suspects, one of whose name rhymed bit too well with word 'remember'.

"I can't believe those three were so stupid," the youngest halfa ranted to no one in particular, while walking circles around the kitchen floor where she had ended up around half way of Danny's story. "They could have gotten themselves killed!"

The young parents followed her pacing with amused calmness of someone who had witnessed something like this enough to get used to it.

"It's just me, or is our little Ellie actually starting to worry over other peoples' safety like a responsive adult instead of wanting to be part of the disaster?" Danny whispered jokingly to his wife, who was making her best not to laugh girl's angry muttering, she too a bit surprised of the fact that the teen had yet to show any marks of jealous towards her friends' little adventure.

"Well, she is her mother's daughter." she teased back and gave knowing look towards the man from behind her mug.

"I mean, how could they go to the most epic adventure of the year and not invite me to go with them! What great friends I have!" Ellie continued her monologue causing Danny gave a foxy grin to Sam.

"Clearly her mother's daughter," he repeated his wife's words, hardly managing to hold his laugher.

"Oh, hush," the woman huffed "She literally gets all her genes from your side of family. It's only so much a social mother like me can do."

"Yeah, yeah..." the ghost hero chuckled and returned to follow his little girl's ranting, small smile on his lips. He was happy to see how much Dani had grown to care about the other sidekicks and had managed to make friend s with them, even though she had her own, a bit weird, ways of showing it. "Just keep telling that to yourself."

"Rise and shine, sunshine! It's a big day today." Danny announced happily as he ripped the blanket off over the still sleeping teenager body. It was now eight of July, three days after the little accident the three youngest (well technically Dani was youngest, but it wasn't like she was going to tell them that anytime soon) sidekicks had caused in D.C.

Sleepy girl looked lazily at her alarm clock that was only showing 6.30 am and hit her head back on the pillow. "Go away... Too early," she mumbled tiredly, turning her back to her bully.

"Is that so?" her father asked with teasing tone, his words followed by soft thumb as he dropped the blanked bumble on the floor. "Then I guess I have to call to Batman and inform him how you aren't interested in taking part of his big secret plan."

"What plan?" Dani's head shot up to stare at Danny's face, her eyes wide and now completely awake.

"If I told it to you, it wouldn't be a secret anymore," he told her with singsong voice and started to walk out of her room. "But since you aren't interested..."

"I'm up, I'm up!" Dani quickly jumped out of her bed and rushed past Danny out of the room, her open hair in even bigger mess than usually. "Hurry up dad, or we will be late!"

"Are you sure you aren't forgetting something?" the Ghost Man called after her, waving a small silver key on his hand as he walked after her, clearly amused because of Dani's fast change of mind.

The teen stopped and looked down at her firsts that were still covered with wide silver bracelets with neon green grooves on them and gave him a sheepish grin. Shaking his head, Danny stepped onwards and turned the key in small keyholes causing each bracelet to make a slight metallic click, widening the seams just enough for Dani to open them completely and slip the bracelets out of her wrists.

"Can we go now?" she asked eagerly after placing the items on the small table next to the stairs while letting the two white rings travelled over her body, turning her into her own ghostly form that was very similar to her father's. Just like her father had kept his black bodysuit mostly unchanged, Dani still wore the almost identical costume than the one Vlad had given her all those years ago. The only things that had really changed were the obvious, difference of the size and increase of protection and the grown length of her shirt's hem so it was now covering her stomach. The later change had caused some arguing back then when she had started helping her dad with other than ghost related hero work, but in the end, Dani had learned to accept that sometimes looking cool had to move aside when it came to safety.

Danny gave his daughter a challenging smirk, floating himself up on the air, he as well letting the identical rings turn him into the Phantom. "Last one on the Park's Zeta-Tube is pile of rotten ectoplasm?"

Dani smirked back, launching herself up in the air. "You are on!" she shouted while flying through the wall to the cool morning air, enjoying the freedom and energy rush that had been banned from her the longest two weeks she had ever lived. On the back of her mind, she was vaguely aware of the weak feel of coldness in her throat, a clear proof of that Danny was right on her heels, wordlessly challenging her to fly even faster than before, and using their little game as means to check that Dani hadn't fallen too badly out of shape while being grounded and that SI bracelets hadn't messed up with her powers. Not that Dani really paid attention on any of that at the moment. And if she had, there was nothing else to mention than slight hyper awareness the unused ecto energy was causing in her and weak shivers from bottled up coldness. Those were just small details her grandparents might find interesting when updating bracelets but when it came to the competition on hand, it was useless information.

In the end, it was Dani who won their little race, even though they both knew if Danny had really wanted to win he would have done it with ease. The closest Zeta-Tube from their home was at the edge of the City Park, hidden inside the still living, but hollow tree, something that had always made Dani to think about the elves from fairy tales Jazz had tried to read her as bedtime stories when Dani had been younger.

"I will go first and program you a one-time visitor code, so we can get you to the Happy Harbor," her father told her already partly phased inside the tree but had stopped to make sure Dani understood what he was saying. It wasn't every day after all when she was allowed to use the Leagues main transportation method and even then, she and the other teen heroes needed their mentors' help to activate them.

"To the Rhode Island?" Dani asked, confused by the name of the city. She knew the early League had kept a HQ in there, but it had been abandoned a little before her dad had joined, meaning she had never been there before. "What we are going to do there?"

"It's a surprise," Danny called back before disappearing completely inside the tree, soon followed by a muted sound of the machinery and flash of light that from outside was only registered as slightly lighter colour of the bark that lasted less than a second.

"Ooookay..." Dani was starting to get more than a bit sceptical towards this surprise, but since going back to sleep was pretty much impossible at this point, and she probably had nothing to lose by doing as Danny had told her to do, the young halfa followed the older hero's example and walked through the thin layer of the wood only to find herself inside small metal walled tube. Soon a small camera appeared behind the hidden panel and scanned her with greenish light.

"Access granted," mechanical woman's voice annoyed. "Phantom A03. Authorization: Phantom 11." The flash of light blinded Dani for a moment and she felt a weird, almost tickling feeling when her body was broken into atoms that were then somehow teleported inside the abandoned phone box on the Happy Harbor's centre. The experiment was still quite unpleasant to someone like her who had previous experiences from breaking down into pieces in molecular level, but at least she had grown out of the panic attacks she had gotten after her first few teleportation experiment that had still happened no matter how well Danny had tried to prepare her to it.

"And don't forget to close your eyes before transmission" said Danny, who was leaning against phone boot, looking annoyingly innocent, while she was still trying to blink the colourful dots out of her sight.

"Thanks from the reminder," she muttered sarcastically and rubbed her eyes one last time. "So, where now?"

"Just follow me," the older Phantom told her, floating once again in the air, however this time he also turned himself invisible, so he wouldn't draw any unwanted attention in the city that wasn't as used to ghost as people in Amity Park were. Following her dad's example Dani flew after him, taking the course towards a lone mountain standing at the edge of the ocean.

In the matter of minutes, the two halfas reached the said mountain where Danny grabbed Dani's hand in his own, turning both of them intangible before leading the duo through the dirt and brown stone with confidence of someone who had taken the same path multiple times, into a large cave that was already full of familiar faces. There was Hawkman, Captain Marvel, Black Canary, Red Tornado… Dani was also pretty sure she saw Hal Jordan disappear into smaller chamber, carrying some large machine in a green hand he had created with his ring. And to her great surprise and delight, her three friends with their mentors were also there alongside a boy who was wearing a black Superman shirt who had to be Superboy: the only known clone beside herself. The Ghost Girl swallowed nervously, sliding her hand out of her father's, remaining invisible this way allowing her to observe the situation without being noticed. Thankfully Danny seemed to understand her desire and stayed in the same state, giving his daughter all the time she needed.

"This cave was the original secret sanctuary of the Justice League," Batman told the four boys who were standing on the line in front of him, excited grins on their faces, some hidden much better than others. "We're calling it into service again. Since you four are determined to stay together and fight the good fight, you'll do it on League terms," he explained with serious voice and turned to face the four young heroes. "Red Tornado volunteered to live here and be your supervisor. Black Canary's in charge of training... I will deploy you on missions," he added the last pit of information after dramatic pause, forcing Dani to hold back a giggle and her dad to roll his eyes. People often thought Batman was just scary person -which he was- but everyone who knew the Dark Knight of Gotham a bit better quickly learned he was just as big drama nerd who liked to add some extra mystery and thrill into his acts just for fun.

"Real missions?" Robin, whom was left his costume behind but was still covered his eyes with dark glasses, asked with almost disbelieving voice.

"Yes, but covert," his mentor promised, emphasizing each syllable of the last word.

"The League will still handle the obvious stuff. There's a reason we have these big targets on our chests," the Flash said from beside his nephew, making sure none of them would get any false hopes, and tapped the symbol painted on his chest to emphasize his words.

Aquaman nodded, agreeing his colleague's words. "But Cadmus proves the bad guys are getting smarter," the king of the Atlantis added. "Batman needs a team that can operate on the sly."

"The six of you will be that team," the Dark Knight finished. Dani turned nudge her father's side, silently asking if the League's leader was being serious, which Phantom answered by squeezing her shoulder gently, and even as invisible, Dani could sense him giving her an encouraging smile. The confirmed made the younger halfa scream internally out of excitement, the simple idea of going to League level missions sounding almost too good to be true.

"Cool!" Robin smirked, then froze when he realized what Batman had said. "Wait. Six?"

The detective's only answer was to move his gaze behind the boys, towards the larger Zeta Tube than the one Phantoms' had used. Huge smile grew on Dani's face when she realized there was two other persons in the room who had been hiding in the shadows: Martian Manhunter and a young _girl_ Martian.

"This is the Martian Manhunter's niece Miss Martian," the current leader of the League introduced the newest redhead who raised her hand to timid greeting.

"Hi."

"Liking this gig more every minute," Dani heard Wally whisper happily to Robin, before moving towards to greet the new girl when Batman continued.

"And I believe the most of you are already familiar with your sixth teammate."

Dani saw that as a clue to make her grand entrance. How Batman knew the halfas were in the room was beyond her understanding, but she decided not to bother herself with it, instead dropping low enough to slap two youngest boys (physically of course) to back of their heads causing them to yelp out of the pain and surprise.

"That was for not inviting me to Cadmus with you."

"Nice to see you too, Angel," the now annoyed Wally told her sarcastically, rubbing his sore head but Dani was already turned her attention towards the new girl.

"Hi, and welcome to Earth! I'm Phantom. I know it's a bit confusing but try not mix me with my dad." Dani shook the green girl's hand with both hands, her knees bend so she could float on eye level with her, then motioned towards the boys behind her "And these suicide-oriented idiots are Kid Flash, Robin, Aqualad and... Superboy, right? We have actually never met before," she smiled at the younger clone who was glaring her suspiciously, though he still nodded his head.

Not the best possible first impression them? Well, Dani had plenty of time to fix that.

The Martian smiled sweetly back at her, not seeming to mind her enthusiasm. "I'm honoured to be included," she told with eager voice while the boys came closer to give their own greetings, expect Superboy who had yet to move from his spot, probably being unsure how he was supposed to act around so many new people.

Dani felt sting of sympathy towards the boy. She had had the same problems back then when she had started living with her grandparents after they had found out the whole half-ghost thing their son had been hiding from them. Valerie and Danny had been a great help to her, but she had known them longest and Dani had a feeling that Superboy wouldn't be that open for her help at least for now. Luckily Robin noticed his hesitation as well and turned to call his friend. "Hey, Superboy. Come meet the girls!"

That was enough to make the Kryptonian finally stop his sulking and joining their little group around Miss Martian. The girl gave him one look then immediately made her cape disappear while turning her white shirt to black still keeping the red x over it.

"I like your t-shirt." she explained to the boy with timid smile in which, after a short stare, Superboy answered with his own. In Dani's opinion, it was a sweet gesture from the girl who was probably trying to make the socially unsure boy feel better in her own way. But maybe in boys' language it meant something else, since after seeing the Martian's little trick, Robin hit playfully Superboy's side, encouraging the clone, and Wally speeded to his side, clearly a bit jealous of the attention the new girl was giving to him. Dani just shook her head to their stupid act and turned to grin at Kaldur, making him to smile a little as well.

"Today is the day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fact 1: Central City is in Missouri and has same time as Illinois where I think that Amity Park is. (-5.00 GMT)
> 
> Fact 2: Danny likes to call the other heroes by their first names. That's why Dani knows their first names, but not that much about their personal lives or identities
> 
>  
> 
> Lets play a little game:
> 
> There are currently three ghost children in this universe who Dani sometimes babysits. Well she babysits two of them, and one just always tags along because he wants to play with them.
> 
> I believe that the two of these characters are pretty obvious, but I want to hear who you think is that last one. I will give a new hint at the end of every chapter until someone figures out the child's name or till we meet all three kids in 'Misplaced', so you have about 19 chapters to come up with theories who is this mystery kid and who are that kid's parents.
> 
> (And by my luck someone gives right answer right away and I have to come up with new game...)
> 
>  **Hint 1** : The mystery kid is not an original character


	3. Welcome to Happy Harbor

_Amity Park  
July 18, 0:56CDT_

"Are you sure that you actually managed to track him down this time?" Dani asked, talking to her phone while flying towards one of the nearer Zeta-Tube with her top speed. Her parents had gone sleep early tonight meaning sneaking out of the house had been easier than usual, but there was always a chance that some rogue ghost would wake her dad up and she would be in a huge trouble if he decided to come to take her with him, only to notice his daughter was once again left the house on her own after the curfew.

"Hey! I already found him twice this week. It's not my fault that you were too slow and he managed to move elsewhere," the offended Boy Wonder tried to defence his detective skills.

"Yeah, yeah... I'm still saying we should have asked Frostbite if he would let us borrow the Infi-map."

"Have you ever even tried if that thing can find people?" Wally's sceptical voice joined in their conservation. He was always the one questioning the way things worked in the Zone and how the dimension's artefacts worked, mostly because of their lack of logic.

"Well, no..." the Ghost Girl admitted cheerfully "But it can bring its user to anywhere he or she wants to. Heck, my dad used it once to chase Plasmius through the time."

"As interesting as that story might be, shouldn't we hurry so we won't miss our friend again?" Aqualad's voice interrupted their bickering.

"Sure. I will meet you guys at Star City's southern ZT in five," Wally answered before shutting his phone.

"I will be there in two," Robin announced.

"And I in half," Dani promised to them at the same moment as she landed in front of the lone photo booth in the alley next to the Amity Park Mall.

"I will see you there," Kaldur confirmed before he too ended the call. How he even had a working phone in Atlantis? Wouldn't the water and the pressure of the ocean break it? Dani made a quick mental note to ask him about it someday.

Putting her own phone in one of her belt's multiple pockets, Danielle looked around the dark alleyway, making sure there were neither humans nor ghosts around to find out the hidden Zeta-Tube, before stepping inside the booth.

"Phantom B02" she announced her new destination code with clear voice, pronouncing each sound with perhaps unnecessary care. Batman had given the young heroes their own codes a little over week ago after their meetup at the cave, this way allowing the teens to move around the globe without 'adult supervision' in matter of seconds. Meaning that getting across the country had never been so easy

When Dani opened her eyes again -which she had now remembered to close to avoid the momentary blindness she had experimented during her last teleportation experience- she found herself in dimly lighted room. On her left, she could see shelves full of Green Arrow and Speedy's tools and equipment. It was hard not to feel like intruder when coming in one of her closest friend's hideouts without permission, not even mentioning how awkward it would be if Ollie decided to show up and see her standing there.

Leaving as soon as possible seemed like a very good idea.

A quick glance down was more than enough to make sure she was still turned invisible before Dani passed through the red bricks that hid the Star City's tube from the civilians, only to froze halfway through when seeing how many people were still walking on the street nearby.

"Oh yes!" she laughed under her breath to her own stupidity, thanking her luck that she had been the first one to arrive in Star City. "Different time zones. It's not even a midnight here."

It didn't take long from her friends to arrive. Robin appeared through the hidden door at the exact time he had promised, followed soon by Kaldur, and finally even Wally decided to show his face, a whole minute later than he had said, but that didn't really surprise anyone.

"So, where now?" the speeder asked, running in place at super speed making Dani to feel a bit dizzy when she tried to focus at his face.

"To the docks." Robin tapped something to his holo-computer. "Speedy has been trying to capture Brick and his gang the whole week and tonight the gang is supposed to pick up a huge import of illegal firearms. I promise you, if Roy doesn't appear, I will eat my cape."

"Be careful what you promise, Rob," Dani smiled mischievously. "Because I will totally make sure you keep that one."

"Worry not, Junior," the younger hero shot back with confident smirk. "We will catch him faster than KF can eat his breakfast."

The earlier smirk on Dani's lips disappeared immediately "How many times I have to tell you not to call me that!" she shouted after the boy who had somehow swung himself on the nearby roof before the halfa managed to finish her sentence, leaving only the echo of his trademark cackle bounce from the narrow alley's walls.

"I'm sure he will learn some day, Missy," she heard Wally snicker as he speeded past her and up to the wall after his friend. The redhead had always found too much pleasure from the fact he wasn't the only one whose name was always remembered wrong. The girl let out frustrated, muted scream, then turned to glare at the Atlantean, her glowing eyes warning him of even thinking any of those stupid nicknames she had been given during her years as hero.

"I won't," he promised seriously, lifting his hands defensively up to the air.

"Good," she huffed and floated to grab the hold on her friend's hands, bulling Aqualad off the ground with her. "Because if you had, I would have made you to run the whole way to the docks on your own." Atlantean only shook his head, small amused smile breaking his otherwise serious posture, then turned his attention towards receding figure of the young detective who was currently making his way over the rooftop towards the sea.

Seeing her friend so calm was at the same time a pleasant and a bit disappointing surprise. Part of Dani had hoped that flying would have made Kaldur a bit more nervous like last time - which had also been his first time up - Dani had taken him up to the sky with her during Phantom and Aquaman's team up almost a year and half ago, but it seemed like his months on land had helped the Atlantean to get rid of his small fear of heights.

Once the young heroes reached to the docks, finding Speedy was surprisingly easy. All they needed to do was to follow the sound of explosions and smoke. Dani and Aqualad themselves arrived at the loading platform just in time to see Kid to knock out couple thugs who had lifted their guns towards Roy out of their leader's command. The two minions standing next the ones Kid had handled lost their guns soon after when Robin glided over them, hitting the firearms down with his mentor's trademark batrangs.

"Drop me," Aqualad ordered and Dani obeyed, letting him to fall on the top of the cargo containers from where he pounced towards the still standing group of thugs, his water-bearers ready to strike, leaving Dani to hover above them all, her both hands now free and ready to take part of the fun.

"Hey loser!" she shouted, gaining the attention of the remaining henchman who had tried to sneak behind the boys. She created ball of sticky ectoplasm between her hands, lifting her leg up as if preparing to make a proper pitch.

"Catch!"

The glowing ball flew through the air and the man's eyes widened. He tried to dive away, but the ball still managed to hit him right to the chest, throwing the man against one of the containers and sticking him against it.

"Bullseye!" the ghost girl cheered before turning her head to look how the boys were doing with the boss. The thug would remain completely harmless to next hour or so until the ectoplasm would dry enough to be crushed.

"The cave is perfect," she heard Kaldur tell Roy on the top of yet another crate. The boss, or Brick as Robin had called him earlier, was currently blinded by thick cloud of smoke that either Robin or Speedy had created, giving the boys a great opportunity to explain to their fellow protégé the deal they had managed to form with the League. "It has everything the team will need."

"For the covert missions," Robin added with excited voice while dropping behind the two older boys. "You know, spy stuff."

"Don't forget the beach!" Dani sighed, now floating over them on her stomach, making the trio to glance up towards her. "Oh, I can already imagine the parties we can throw there."

"And wait till you see Superboy and Miss Martian," Wally smirked, jumping to stand in front of his friends. "But I saw her first," He added quickly as if it would already be clear as day he had already caught the alien girl's heart.

Meantime, Brick had managed to clear his view and dug his hands in the ground, tearing a huge boulder from the ground he was now tossing towards they group.

"In coming!" Dani shouted out the warning and turned quickly intangible as KF, Speedy and Robin scattered in different directions while Aqualad turned to face the upcoming chunk. The dual water maces morphed on his recently empty handles just in time to crush the large rock with them. Taking advance of the cover Kaldur offered, Speedy set three arrows on his bow's string and fired them right on the meta-criminal's chest where they exploded one by one, dropping the huge man on his knee.

The attack didn't seem to harm him that much though; instead Brick raised his head and let out a cocky laugh. "Tell Arrow he shouldn't send kids to do man's job."

As answer, Speedy only picked another arrow from his quiver and tuned his bow. Dani would be lying if she had claimed that the archer didn't look bad ass while doing so.

"Go ahead," Brick challenged and opened his arms wide. The mob boss clearly had even bigger ego than Dani had expected from Roy's stories if he had guts to take a risk like that. Well, at least she got a good laugh when Roy's arrow turned out to be full of some red goo that soon swallowed the man inside, making him unable to move anywhere.

"High-density polyurethane foam? Nice," Wally praised when he speeded back from his cover.

"So, he can breathe through that stuff?" Dani asked through her giggles, brushing away the tears that had formed at the corner of her eye.

"Yes," Speedy answered coldly, making the Ghost Girl drop her smile, confusion taking over as her eyes followed the archer walking towards Robin and Aqualad who were casually leaning against the crates' metal walls.

"So, Speedy, you in?" the younger boy asked, familiar smirk playing on his lips.

"Pass," Roy said harshly, his masked eyes turning to glare at Robin with almost despicable way "I'm done letting Arrow and the League tell me what to do. I don't need a baby sitter or a clubhouse to hang out with the other kids. Your Junior Justice League is a joke, something to keep you busy and in your place." the last words were spat out like they were curses. Then he turned his head away and continued walking, never looking back towards the others. "I don't want any part of it."

"Oh, Speedy come on," Dani called after him, trying her best not to sound insulted or hurt because of her friend's words as she flew after him. "It will be fun."

Even if the redhead realised the halfa was just behind his back (dump question, of course he realised she was there), he did not show it in any way, leaving Dani in dwell in her own annoyance and hurt while Roy navigated his way through the dark paths between the crates, for some reason not bothering to make his way top of them. She was quite sure it was because he was out of the grappling hook arrows and too stubborn to ask lift from her. The younger boys hadn't bothered to follow them, probably hoping Dani's own bullheadedness would be enough to get through Speedy's equally thick skull.

"Sooo… Are you going to pretend that I'm permanently invisible much longer or are you going to tell me what is actually bothering you?" Dani finally opened her mouth after what had felt like eternity, but in actual time she had been following Roy less than two minutes, but the archer remained silent.

"Ah yes, I have been fine these past couple weeks you have spent ignoring my messages, thanks for asking." she continued in almost mockingly carefree tone, then moving to describe almost every single meaningful and meaningless detail that had happened in her life.

"Oh, and Sophia is planning ask her grandparents if she can keep her birthday party on their place next month since they have this huge pool at their backyard and she has gotten this crazy idea in her head that she needs to-"

"You are never going to shut up unless I talk to you, aren't you…" Roy's words were still as sharp as knife against someone's throat, but whatever or not it was just wishful thinking, Dani swore she was able to hear something like a hint of amusement under all that annoyance and anger the older teen had started to carry like a cloak where ever he went.

The moment Dani heard Roy's voice, she let the gravity to take its hold on her and pull her feet against the ground, not even trying to hide her smugness as her friend turned to face her, "Nope" she grinned, popping the 'p' like an invisible bubble-gum. The glare she earned from her answer was more than enough to make her face fall and adopt more serious and worried look.

"Seriously Roy, what's wrong? It's not like this is the first time you have fight with Arrow… or with adults in general."

The archer just scoffed, "Doesn't it bother you how the League keeps promising us respect, only to treat us worse than misbehaving kids at every change they get."

"Meh, they are not that bad," she shrugged her shoulders not really understanding why her friend was still angry about not getting tour in the Watchtower. "At least you weren't grounded at the most important day of your life… But you know how my parents can be sometimes. And maybe I deserved my punishment. I mean, it might have been, in some degree, my fault that Fenton Works lost over year worth of researches... Kind of."

Roy rolled his eyes to his friend's rambling, the expression on his face clearly telling he wasn't surprise even slightest what had caused Dani's absence on that day. "It wasn't like you missed anything important. I'm sure the others have already told you about the glorified backstage passes they tried to sell to us. Can you believe that the League had face to try keep us satisfied with free access into that tourist trap when what they promised to us was a tour in their headquarters! Why should any of us accept a treatment like this?" Dani changed awkwardly her weight from one foot to another, something that was not left unnoticed from her friend whose eyes narrowed behind the mask. "Unless you already knew what they were plaining."

Dani turned her head away, too guilty and ashamed of her own past cowardliness to face her friend's judging eyes and betrayal he would surely see in her silence. Dani knew that keeping Roy's hopes up after Danny had told her the plans only allow them inside the Hall had the most likely been a wrong thing to do, but every time she had tried to tell Roy the truth, seeing his enthusiasm towards the upcoming visit and that rare, genuine smile he showed way too rarely had been enough to make her unable to even open her mouth. So, she had kept her silence, assuring to herself that surely Green Arrow would bring his protégé down to Earth before it was too late.

And now she could do nothing but try and fix the damage her choice had caused.

Too bad that the other young hero wasn't as willing to do the same. From Dani's lack of answer and unwillingness to meet his gaze, Roy had correctly deduced the answer to his question as affirmative and, newly lit anger darkening his expression, he had already turned his back to her.

"Tt, of course. I should have known that girls like you will always blindly follow their daddies like some mindless lambs."

"Roy," Dani hurried to grab hold on his wrist before he would escape, the words pouring out of her mouth almost too fast he to understand as she tried to get out everything she needed to say. "Can't you see why they let us in the Hall instead of the Watchtower? It was all about our public image. The League wanted to show the world we're worth of their legacy; that people can trust us just as much as they believe in the Justice League. Haven't you heard how exited the media got after your visit? They are already making bets which one of us will be the first one accepted as fulltime member. The Watchtower might still be a no-go for now, but with this new team we have even bigger chances to prove the League we are ready to be more. That we already are more than just stupid sidekicks."

The silence between them that gave Dani bittersweet false hopes hardly lasted longer than a heartbeat before Roy wrenched his arm free from Dani's hold.

"You are both naïve and idiot if you believe in that."

Every explanation and excuse she already had on the tip of her tongue disappeared in the air with that final insult, leaving behind the raising heat on her cheeks and curled fists when Dani's temper decided she had had enough of Roy's attitude.

"If one of us is blind, then it's you," it was now her turn to growl, and if the older teen had bothered to turn around to look at her, he would have seen how her toxic green eyes were glowing brighter than he had seen ever before. "Just wait and see, Speedy. With help of this team I will be the member of the Justice League before the world will even stops calling you just Green Arrow's sidekick."

But Roy had already made his decision and no matter how many insults she would throw after him, her friend wouldn't give her the answer or reaction she wanted and needed. And soon, he was gone, forcing Dani to return to where younger boys were still waiting their return with empty hands.

Saying they were disappointed and more than little hurt would be understatement, but it wasn't even close enough to dim the dreams and hopes the creation of their very own team had lighted and with new found determination the four sidekicks agreed to meet again in their hideout in the following morning so they could ask if the League had something, anything, they could use to make Speedy to regret his words.

But whatever they knew it or not, Roy's words had been enough to plant a seed of doubt in their hearts where it would grow and lift its ugly head at the worst possible moments it could find.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Amity Park  
July 18, 9.56 CDT_

"And then he was like 'I'm too grumpy and bitter to Green Arrow to admit how lucky you guys are, so I'm just going to insult your cool cave and walk away dramatically in the shadows,'" Dani performed her purposely terrible imitation from Roy's voice and earned amused snort from Valerie, who was currently fixing herself a simple omelette for breakfast. During all years she had known the halfa girl, Valerie had grown fairly used to finding the teen sitting in her kitchen or on couch at the random times of the day when the younger girl needed someone completely alive and sane to talk with. Still, Valerie was quite sure that someone who had spent majority of her High School years flying around the city hunting ghost was hardly the normal definition of the sane person.

"Just give him some time to cool down. I'm sure he will come around."

Dani sighed and started to poke some crumbs around the table's wooden surface, arranging them into simple shapes before breaking those in order to form something different. "I know. It's just that… Roy is one of my best friends. Of course we have had our fights, but this is first time he even refuses to answer to my calls."

"He is a teenage boy with anger issues. He will change his mind when he hears about the awesome missions Batman gives you," Valerie assured as she sat down, forkful of hot eggs already in her mouth. Dani knew her friend was only trying to make her feel better, but the mention of the missions only made the girl wrinkle her nose and earn questioning look from the woman in front of her.

"If we even get one," Dani finally muttered sourly, Roy's accusation from the night before a bit too fresh in her mind to help her to keep up any kind of optimism when it came to her new team.

And being the good friend she was, Valerie knew without hitch when the chance of topic was in need.

"Sooo…" she pounced ideas around her head before choosing the first one that made sense. "How is the clone boy? Adjusting well to his new life outside the test tube, I hope."

The halfa blinded her eyes and looked up at her older friend, then shrugged, not really sure if there was anything to tell that Valerie didn't know already. "Superboy is doing fine, I guess. He still doesn't like to talk that much but I'm sure the way how Superman keeps ignoring him bothers Supey more than he claims." sure there was something else worth of mentioning… "Oh, and I finally managed to get him to wear the jacket mom send to him."

Valerie let out another short laugh, this time muffed by the eggs in her mouth, throwing her hands up the air out of mock celebration. "Finally!" the two women giggled, the mood of the room already turning happier one than a moment ago and Valerie pointed her fork towards Dani's face. "What did you do?"

"Oh, you know," the teen smirked slyly, "I just made it clear that he either takes and wears it or I will personally hang him upside-down into the cave's ceiling, deep enough that even with he won't be able to get off there on his own"

Valerie shook her head "You are a terrible person." she snickered, the most likely imagining the poor boy's face when Dani had started to describe his options.

"I know," Dani leaned smugly against the back of the chair. "And you would pay to see me to do that."

"Guilty and proud of it" was the woman's answer as she lifted her coffee mug up to cheer, a gesture which Dani mimicked by lifting her own, non-existent mug.

The next couple minutes passed two of them wondering if the neck deep of solid rock would be enough to stop a Kryptonian from breaking free or would Dani be forced to leave only boy's eyes exposed and would he even survive without oxygen. Superman could survive in space after all, but Superboy was still lacking some of the older Kryptonian's powers, either because of his young age or something had gone wrong during the cloning process, the theory that both Dani and Valerie thought to be the more likely one.

Their talk was cut short though when Dani accidentally caught the sight of the microwave's clock and jumped up from her chair, dramatically rushing towards the door, "Oh, sugar cookies! I'm late!"

"Get Tucker out of the bed on your way out, will you?" Valerie shouted after her, returning to eat her omelette not really caring whatever or not the halfa had heard her before disappearing from Valerie's sight. But even if this was the case, a loud thumb of something heavy hitting on floor and annoyed shout from her fiancé where soon heard in their small two-room apartment, followed by happy, echoing laugh when its owner disappeared towards whatever new adventures she had planned for the starting day.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Mount Justice  
July 18, 11.16 EDT_

_"Recognize: Phantom, B02"_

"Please tell me I got here before KF!" Phantom shouted the very moment she emerged from the Zeta-Tube, only to see how the said redhead was already running towards the tunnel she knew to lead to one of the cave's exists, Robin on his heels and Aqualad calmly walking behind them while the two alien members were still standing in front of the floating holographic screens.

"Sorry Angel, better luck next time." Wally ran couple steps backwards just to milk everything he could from his victory with teasing grin.

"It doesn't count! He came with me," Robin called over his shoulder, earning reliever whoop from the Ghost Girl and betrayed 'dude' from the speedster.

"It's still Phantom 3, Kid Flash 4" Dani announced to the two remaining teens in the room, her hands wide as if expecting applauses from her audience.

"Uuum…" a little lost looking Miss Martian glanced towards Superboy for help, who didn't even bother shrug his shoulders before turning to follow the other boys.

"We have this little competition with Kid about which one of us is more often the last one to arrive at the meetings," the halfa told her a bit sheepishly, explaining their little game to someone new made it always feel a bit silly, while motioning the other girl to follow her as Dani too floated after the others.

"Oh," the Martian's happy smile returned as she flew to Dani's side "Some of my siblings had similar game when they were little. Not that I'm saying your game is childish, but-"

Dani laughed and hit playfully Miss M's shoulder, "It's okay. No offence taken," she assured, "And yeah, I know it's a bit childish, but hey, I have earned two free ice creams from it."

The Martian smile grew even brighter, jumping to talk about how her uncle had taken her to an ice cream bar soon after her arrival to Earth and what flavours she still wanted to try in the future. Dani answered with her own opinions and promise to go and check Happy Harbor's ice cream places in near future with her.

It was kinda funny how easy it was to keep the naturally curious and exited Martian happy. She seemed to be a bit naïve at time to time, though Dani couldn't be sure if it was because of her unfamiliarity with Earth's culture or if her parents had been really sheltering. The later could also explain why Miss M was so eager to make her new teammates to like her, since overprotective parents would most likely mean she hadn't had that many friends while growing up. That, or the green girl just happened to have that kind of personality or perhaps it was the way how Martian norms expected their women to act.

Oh great… She was starting to sound like Aunt Jazz.

The two girls reached at the end of the tunnel that had lead them outside through one of the old HQ's many hidden passages just at the bottom of the mountain which real name Dani hadn't yet bothered to learn. After all, there was no way the mountain's name was Mount Justice as her dad had tried to claim. That would have been just way too obvious, even from the League.

"Greetings," the red android's artificial voice, which Dani had always found really cool sounding, didn't have any sort of worry in it -mostly because Tornado hadn't programmed to have emotions in the same way as humans had them- but she was sure he was already scanning the cave and surrounding areas to identify the possible problem. "Is there a reason why you intercept me outside the cave?"

"We hoped you had a mission for us"

"The missions are Batman's responsibility," the android answered matter-in-factly to Kaldur'ahm's explanation. Technically it hadn't been negative answer, but it was enough to make the original proteges more than little annoyed.

"But it has been over a week, and nothing-" Robin started to protest, only to be interrupted when Red Tornado help up his hand.

"You will be tested soon enough," he assured. "For the time being, simply enjoy each other's company."

"This team is not a social club," all of them narrowed their eyes to emphasize Kaldur's words. Expect Miss M, but neither she looked that happy any more.

"Yeah," Dani crossed her arm. "And if you don't have any missions, couldn't Canary at least start those combat lessons she promised to us?"

"No," Red Tornado agreed with Kaldur's claim. "But I am told social interaction is an important team-building exercise. Perhaps you can keep busy by familiarizing yourself with the cave." the android suggested and turned to look at the young half ghost. "Black Canary is, at the moment, lacking the time to begin your training. She will contact you when she is free to do so."

Red Tornado moved past the teens and after he had outside the immediate hearing range, Wally elbowed Robin. "Keep busy" he quoted the android clearly unhappy of his words choice.

"Does he think we are falling for this," the younger boy complained maybe a bit too loud making Dani to glance towards the android, but it seemed that Tornado hadn't heard him.

"Oh, I'll find out!" the Martian suggested, sounding exited to be able to show her powers and help her new friends. As Tornado entered inside the cave, activating hidden identity scanners on his way, Miss Martian narrowed her eyes at him, looking like she was concentrating hard on something. But after couple seconds of intense staring, she sighed sadly. "I'm sorry. I forgot he is a machine, inorganic. I cannot read his mind."

"Nice try though," Wally smiled at her in a way Dani was more than sure the next thing leaving from his mouth would be something corny. "So, you know what I'm thinking right now?"

And here we go, she groaned and moved to pull the redhead from his ear. It was more like a small pinch, enough to get a mock 'ow' out of the boy, but not leaving any marks behind. "Okay Casanova, behave," she scoffed, being more bored with his weak flirting than anything else.

" _We all_ know what you are thinking now" Robin said, sounding just as annoyed as Dani was.

Kaldur lifted his chin, looking just as unhappy as everyone else "And now we tour the Club House."

"Well, Superboy and I live here" Miss Martian started and looked towards the Kryptonian. "We can play the tour guides?"

Others turned to look at him, Dani with wide, hopefully encouraging, smile but it seemed Superboy didn't like the idea that much.

"Don't look at me," he grunted

"We won't," Wally answered a bit too happily and spun back towards his fellow redhead. "A private tour sounds much more fun."

"She never said private," Robin interposed with tone that made Dani wonder if the Fastest Boy Alive wasn't the only one who had developed a little crush on the new girl. If they were going to do this every time when meeting a new girl, thank goodness she herself had first met them before the boys had hit their puberty.

"Team building," Aqualad interrupted the two boys' meaningless bickering and saved Miss Martian from her very awkward position. "We all go."

The red-haired girl beamed to him and turned to walk towards the cave's entrance, the rest of them following just behind her.

"So, this would be our front door," she started her guide and Dani flew lazily beside her.

"It's a pretty big," she commented casually and shot a teasing smirk towards Robin, "A bit weird if you ask from me. Isn't Batman the only one with a car?"

"Hey. Arrow has one too and you know it," the Boy Wonder shot back with mock anger in his voice and they all chuckled. Well, all expect Superboy who once again didn't seem to care.

To tell the truth, Dani was already quite familiar with most of the cave since she had visited there more than once to help her two new friends with cleaning and setting up their new rooms, mostly because she had wanted to get to know the other clone better, but she had also learned to enjoy the more social Martian's company.

Sadly, it seemed that making Superboy to warm up to her was much harder and to be honest, Dani understood his hesitation to open himself up to new people after what had happened in Cadmus. It was going to take some time from him to open up with her, especially since Dani had yet to tell him about her own status as a clone. Maybe she should have told about it from the very beginning, but she just knew that after she had 'came out of the closet' her secret wouldn't stay between just her and Superboy very long before her older friends would start suspect something and Dani just wasn't ready to cross that bridge anytime soon.

And then there was this the whole… situation between Superboy and Clark. Call her cowards if you want, but she was afraid the Kryptonian teen, who already seemed to dislike her in some degree for some reason, would end up hating her only because Danny had learned to accept her as his daughter despite her origins.

But back to the tour. Majority of the room they passed were empty bedrooms and storages, but there was also a medical bay and a several labs that were left mostly empty. Why the early League had thought they had needed so much space was a bit funny, the question which Wally voiced at the half-way of their tour, but Robin knew to tell though that the cave system was prepared to work as temporary shelter for the residents of the neighbouring areas in case of another huge attack like the one that had led the adults to team up the very first time.

Miss M took her role as a tour guide maybe a bit too seriously, showing them even the locations of the cleaning closets (all 8 of them) but she surely knew how to leave the best for the last, as the Martian finally lead them out of the cliff where they were able to enjoy one of the best views of the ocean and coastline from this side of the continent. "And this would be the back." she finished "The cave is actually the entire mountain."

"So I have heard," Wally nodded as they started to make their way back inside. "It was hollowed out and reinforced by Superman and Green Lantern in the early days of the League."

"Then why to abandon it for the Hall of Justice?" Superboy, who had kept his silence the majority of the tour suddenly spoke up.

"The cave's secret location was… compromised," Kaldur explained and Dani snickered.

"Yeah. Apparently, some of the bad guys found their way in and caused bit of the chaos. It must have been quite embarrassing since Dad still hasn't managed to get the whole story out of those who were members back then."

"So they traded it in for a tourist trap?" Superboy scowled. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"If villains know of the cave, we must be in constant alert," Miss Martian spoke up, sounding surprisingly determined. With charming smirk, Robin reached out to take her hand into his own.

"The bad guys know we know they know about the place, so they'd never think to look here." he assured.

"What he means is…" Wally explained while stepping forwards, removing Robin's hand from the girl's. "We're hiding in plain sight."

"Ah," she scratched her head, she looked still a bit uncertain, "That's much clearer"

Dani placed her arm on the other girl's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Don't worry, the cave is completely safe. The League would never let us use this place if they thought otherwise."

Miss Martian turned and was about to say something but was interrupted when Superboy suddenly spoke up.

"I smell smoke," he looked suspiciously towards the hangar's entrance, gaining the attention of the rest of the team, but before anyone else realised to worry, the Martian girl gasped.

"My cookies!" she cried out of horror, immediately flying like a bullet down to the hall towards the kitchen, leaving the rest of the teens behind.

"Did she say cookies?" Wally asked hopefully, jogging (at least in speedster speed) after her, others following soon behind.

At kitchen, Dani moved to hover over the kitchen bar to study the damage on the baking tray. The small scorched pieces surely looked like they were cookies, so the other girl's experiment hadn't been a complete fiasco. If only the coals had been part of the humans' average diet.

Miss Martian looked mournfully her supposed baked goods. "I was trying out Granny Jones' recipe from episode 17 of- uh…" she laughed awkwardly, "Never mind."

"I bet they would have tasted great," Robin tried to cheer her up "Those two don't seem to mind" he continued with smirk turning the attention towards Kid Flash and Dani who were munching the burned cookies, only stopping when feeling the others' eyes on them.

"I…" Wally mumbled his mouth full "have serious metabolism" he shrugged as if the explanation would explain his lack of the taste buds.

"And the heart is still good," Dani added after swallowing her mouth full. "Besides, compared to my first cookies, these are excellent. Mine tried to eat me, not the other way around."

The redhead blinked. "I'll…. make more?" she asked almost hopefully

"It was sweet of you to make any." Kaldur told her with his usual kind smile.

"Thanks, Aqualad."

"We are off duty. Call me Kaldur'ahm." He introduced himself to the new members of the group. "Actually, my friends call me Kaldur"

"I'm Wally," the redhead told and shot flirty smirk towards Miss Martian. "See, I already trust you with my secret ID. Unlike the Mr. Dark Glasses over here." Wally smugly motioned to the younger boy, who glared back clearly annoyed. "Batman's forbitten Boy Wonder from telling anyone his real name."

"You can call me Dani. With i." the halfa decided to join to the introduction ring "Phantom is kinda my last name, but honestly, mostly only ghosts are aware of that."

"Mine is no secret. It's M'gann M'orzz." she announced with wide smile. "But, you can call me Megan. It's an Earth name, and I'm on Earth now."

Unnoticed to Dani, Superboy had left his spot from the side of the kitchen counter during their little team introduction, making his way towards the cave's wider areas. But when she heard him to let out a surprised, and angry, grunt, her worried eyes immediately shot on him.

"Superboy?"

"Get out of my head!" Superboy shouted angrily to M'gann, holding his head as if in pain. Dani, among the others turned to look at confused Martian, seeking explanation to what the boy had meant with his words.

 _"What's wrong? I don't understand"_ sudden voice echoed inside Dani's head, creating a feeling so weird and foreign that her brain just couldn't handle it without making it feel like dozens of needles were piercing through her head. _"Everyone on Mars' communicates telepathically."_

"M'gann stop." Kaldur's stern voice cut the air, him being the first one to recover from the unpleasant feeling. "Things are different on Earth. Here, your powers are an extreme invasion of privacy."

"Besides, Cadmus creepy little physic gnomes left a bad taste in his brain." Wally added, pointing his finger to Superboy.

"I- I didn't mean to-" stuttered weakly, no realizing the error in her ways, but Superboy didn't want to hear her excuses.

"Just. Stay. Out." he growled with threatening tone before marching out of the kitchen area.

"Well… That was an… interesting experience." Dani offered weakly, trying to break the awkward silence fallen between them.

"I'm sorry." M'gann apologized with quiet voice, not really looking any of them in the eyes.

"It's okay," Robin assured "You didn't know."

The words didn't seem to convince M'gann, but they were enough to spark a new idea

"Hello Megan," the Martian slapped her forehead, her smile returning "I know what we can do."

When the other girl flew out of the room, leaving Dani and her friends share confused looks, Robin even struggling, none of them really sure what she had on mind. Still, they decided to follow her, Dani leaving hover at the doorway, uncertain if she should say something to Superboy.

"So… Wanna join us?" she offered awkwardly, only getting short and sharp "No" as an answer.

"Superboy, please" M'gann, who had returned after noticing their absence, asked softly.

"Don't talk to me." the boy answered even more harshly. Disappointed, and little hurt redhead lowered her gaze, and Dani squeezed her shoulder gently, giving the other girl sympathised smile before flying after the others waiting for them. After a couple seconds, Megan joined them, with much happier smile, and to others' surprise, Superboy followed her close behind.

M'gann lead them into elevator and pushed the button to hangar, purposely dodging those few questions that mostly Wally and Dani threw at her. But the moment the elevators doors opened, the girl speared her arms and announced proudly "It's my Martian Bio-Ship"

The earthling members of the team shared once again confused looks when seeing the bean shaped red thing in front of them, not sure how they should respond.

"Cute," Wally, being the smooth talker he was, commented. "Not aerodynamic, but cute."

Megan laughed "It's at rest, silly. Here, I will wake it." and with practised movement of her hand, the ship's shape started to change, as if it was made out of play-dough, turning the bullet shaped egg into a still alien looking, but impressive airship.

Dani let out a low, impressed whistle while M'gann turned the ship around with swipe of the hand, revealing the opening door at them.

"Well, are you coming?" she asked from the boys and Dani who were still staring the changed ship with awestruck wonder.

The insides of the ship were made out of similar smooth material as from outside, the dark shades of purple and violet being the controlling colours, creating a quite calming and dream-like atmosphere in Dani's opinion. And yet, the mechanisms of the ship were something you wouldn't see in the world outside the Ghost Zone. The insides of the ship were constantly changing; doors growing inside the ship's frame instead of moving aside, chairs appearing out of the originally perfectly smooth floor and adapting a colour of their own. It all was almost like something or someone was able to manipulate the ship as they wished, a thought that made the young halfa to look at her newest friend with newfound respect.

"Strap in for a launch" M'gann advised them nervously, making Robin and Wally to rush towards the closest chairs, letting out surprised and impressed laughs when four belts grew out of the chairs at the very moment their behinds landed on them, tying the boys tightly on their place.

After the remaining four had sat down, seating Superboy in between Kaldur and Dani, M'gann called to Red Tornado, asking him to open the bay doors, which started to open slowly at the other side of the room only seconds later. The ship shot through the doorway, not spending much time near the waves below, taking its course closer the clouds so civilians wouldn't see them and fill the internet with crazy UFO theories.

Well, this time their claims would be correct, but even today when Earth was protected by four heroes who weren't exactly hiding their origins and two literal space cops, the masses still often claimed the tales about aliens walking among us and UFO sights as crazy men's talk. Same went with ghosts, problem which caused endless problems with acceptance of the Ecto-Equality Act, even if the existence of the ghosts had been common knowledge almost a decade.

Dani let her eyes rest on the view below them, enjoying the rare opportunity to be up in the air without having to use her own powers to do so. The other Earth born teens also seemed to have a good time.

"Incredible," Robin said, laughter in his voice.

"She sure is," Wally agreed with dreamy voice, and Dani could not but snicker when he hurried to correct how he had meant the ship, not the redhead he had been staring, leading the Boy wonder to tease him good naturedly.

On the other side of the Superboy, Kaldur leaned closer to him, speaking with quiet voice so the (again physically) youngest members wouldn't hear their conservation.

"I might not have psychic powers, but I can guess what you are thinking. You over reached, and you don't know how to apologize."

"And no one is blaming you for that." Dani piped in, with knowing smile, "Social interactions are a real pain to master. And even then, you will the most likely fail every now and then."

"Now you can just say sorry." Aqualad finished. Their effort didn't seem lift the dark-haired boy's mood, and he returned to stare ahead with unreadable expression.

Dani let out a disappointed sigh and turned also her gaze back on the moving landscape outside. Behind them the younger heroes whispered among themselves, but Dani decided not to bother to try and listen what they were saying. It wasn't like she had super hearing like someone else she knew.

"Hey!" Robin suddenly spoke in louder voice, so everyone would hear him. "How about showing us a little Martian shapeshifting?"

Dani turned her head around and saw how M'gann had already up, the change on her body starting and soon they were marvelling the sight of slightly taller and clearly feminine Robin, who – during a little pirouette- shifted into Kid Flash's identical twin sister, with same suit and all.

"Is it wrong if I think I am hot?" the original asked once again dreamily, a question which was left completely ignored.

"Impressive," the youngest boy clapped his hands, his voice turning a bit awkward as he continued. "But you know that you aren't exactly gonna fool anyone with those."

Megan smiled sheepishly "Mimicking boys is a lot harder." she admitted and turned into almost perfect copy of Dani, all thought she still kept her original height and the glowing around her was slightly different from the one the Ghost Girl emitted. "And I'm still trying to figure out how to mimic ghosts' aura properly. It doesn't seem to work in the same way as any biological organism I have tried before."

"Probably because she isn't organic." Wally joked, getting pointed look from Dani, but she didn't say anything since he had been half right.

"And your clothes?" Kaldur asked, referring how the Martian's clothing had been able to change alongside her physical appearance to match with the form she copied.

"They are organic like the ship. They respond to my mental command." she explained eagerly

But of course, someone had to ruin the mood.

"As long as they are the only ones." Superboy grumbled, and Dani kicked his angle sharply, stressing her point with disappointed glare. The Kryptonian clone glared back at her angrily before returning to his sulking and ignoring the other people inside the ship.

"Can you do that ghosting through walls thing that Martian Manhunter does?" Wally asked, trying to bring the smile back to the hurt girl's face.

"Density shifting?" she asked unsurely, stopping to think for a moment. "No… I-it's a very advanced technique."

"Flash can vibrate his molecules right through a wall," Robin pointed out and chuckled impishly. "Whenever he does it, bloody nose."

"Dude!"

"And you should see when Dani tries to make copies out of herself like Phantom does. Last time it took her over an hour to get rid of that extra tongue growing out of her ear. And it had an eye on it."

"But I do know how to make you fall through the floor, Boy Blunder." the halfa said with dangerous growl and the boy lifted his hands up defensively, the smug smirk never leaving from his face. Soft amused chuckles from their friends filled the ship.

"Here is something I can do," M'gann announce. At first it seemed that nothing had happened, but when Dani moved her head slightly, she noticed the tips of the wings were now gone. Well, not gone, as she noticed after taking better look, just transparent like they were made out of some kind of fine, non-reflecting glass.

But before anyone really had time to say anything about it, the voice of Red Tornado came out from the hidden speakers, making Dani and her friend to perk up and listen closely what the hero had to say.

"Red Tornado to Miss Martian. An emergency alert has been triggered at the Happy Harbor power plant. I suggest you investigate covertly. I'm sending coordinates."

"Received," she nodded, and Dani saw more than felt how the ship turned towards their new destination. "Adjusting course"

"Tornado is keeping us busy again," Robin huffed, clearly unhappy.

"I don't know," Dani shrugged indifferently. "Some team building mission might do some good for us. I mean we have two newbies in team. No offence." she quickly added when Superboy shot a mean look at her, making the halfa very happy he was lacking his DNA donor's heat vision.

"And simple fire lead you to Superboy." Megan reminded, sounding rather optimistic as she lowered her ship closer the power plants parking lot. "We should at least find out what caused the alert."

"…I think I know the cause," Superboy looked past Dani, making the rest of their team to turn their heads as well, only to see a fairly large tornado – Dani could swear it hadn't been there a moment ago- speeding towards them.

Unable to move fast enough, the ship was suck into the tornado, spinning it around like a toy plane in its grasp. The sudden growth of the g-forces slammed them all painfully against their chairs causing the teens to grunt and struggle to maintain the control of their limps.

Then the Bio-Ship seemed to jump forward and speeded forward as the power of Martian technology managed to defeat the forces of nature. Miss Martian guided her ship to the safe distance, finally lowering it closer towards the ground level.

"I will open the floor, so be ready to jump." she announced while the seatbelts grew back inside the seats and the whole team get up.

Jumping out of the ship, the team landed on the asphalt – expect Dani who kept hovering – and lifted their heads to witness the chaos they needed to deal with. There were a lot screaming people trying to escape the tornado destroying the power plant, but from the distance Dani was observing, it didn't seem that anyone was in immediate danger.

"Robin," Aqualad called out over the wind and the screams. "Are tornadoes common to New England."

The silence was his only answer. And when they turned to look, the boy was simply gone, leaving only his cackle behind.

"Robin?!"

"He was just here." Miss Martian looked around in confusion, being the only who hasn't really witnessed the Boy Wonder's famous ninja skills. The row of the windows at within the building started to burst out, as if broke by a very strong wind or force.

Both Dani and Wally let out annoyed sigh. "And now he is there." she muttered sarcastically, silently cursing that her friend had once more decided to start the party without her.

"Well, we should probably go and help him." Wally said, starting to job towards the building, for once in normal speed so the others wouldn't fall behind too badly.

Inside the building, the team was greeted with the sight of man, cowered entirely from head to toe by red and black armour making him to look like an android similar to Red Tornado.

Superboy was first to reach Robin, who was laying on the floor, trying to catch his breath after a painful hit. "Who's your new friend" he asked, glaring daggers at the robot-man.

"Didn't catch his name," the younger boy said, sounding more frustrated than anything. And as the Kryptonian charged towards the attacker, Robin shouted after him. "But he plays kinda rough!"

"My apologies," the artificial voice spoke up. "You may address me as Mister Twister."

"Isn't that a plumping cleaner?" Dani pointed out and formed a small shield to protect herself and the two boys on her side from the new set of tornadoes the self-claimed Mister Twister had shout out of his hands.

Superboy, being the closest of the villain, wasn't able to push through the winds despite his strength and was thrown into the wall behind them.

Next to Dani, Wally had dug his goggles from the depths of his pocket and placed them on. He made a small, almost unnoticeable hand signal, telling the rest of the team he was ready to move the moment they were. Dani and Kaldur did the same, the later remembering to give the clearer signal to the girl who wasn't as familiar with the League's battle communication as they were.

Kid Flash was the first to charge, his fast attack hopefully giving the others an opening for some stronger hits. But the armoured man was ready. He created a new wind that caught Kid in mid jump, using the boy's own speed to shoot him all way to the other side of the clearing behind the power plant.

When Twister returned his attention to the other teens, Aqualad and Miss M were already coming at him. Before they managed to get close enough, new tornadoes appeared under them and two of them were thrown away by power of the villain's attack as well.

Dani let the winds go straight through her intangible body. Seeing her change, the halfa shot her hand towards the armour's chest piece, hoping to mess with the suits wirings. But to her surprise, her hand slammed hard against a solid surface, sending a wave of pain through her whole arm.

"Serio-" her annoyed yell was stopped by metal arm slamming against her side, hurling her against the near pillar.

The girl groaned out of pain, "I hate ghost proof armours…" she muttered and spat on the floor to get rid of the taste of ectoplasm in her mouth.

While Dani was getting up, Robin was distracting the robot man, chunking one of his explosive pellet on him and even managed to sink a shuriken-disk-thingy on his chest.

"Objectively, you are," Twister commented dryly, continuing conservation which start Dani must have missed, simply flipping the shuriken off -she was pretty sure Robin called them birdarangs or something like that- before it exploded. "Have you no adult supervision? I find your presence there quite… disturbing"

"Well," Robin shouted back as the other teens still in the building gathered around him. Kaldur gave them a yet another signal, telling the others he had a plan, the quick glance towards M'gann more than enough to make it clear she would be the one to move first. "We hate to see you disturbed. Let's see if you're more turbed when we kick your can!"

The Martian lifted her hands up towards the large pipe above Twister, making it shake, before she yanked them back, as if she was pulling a rope. The motion made the pipe burst open, releasing a large cloud of hot steam over the armoured villain, blinding him.

The moment the pipe broke, Superboy launched himself up into the air, cleverly taking advance of the situation. Unfortunately, the steam managed to clear enough Twister to notice him and create another tornado, stopping the clone less than a hand length away from him. The strong wind hovered Superboy on place a couple seconds before it fired him up at the ceiling where he bounced straight onto M'gann, dropping them both down.

Dani and the boys managed to dodge their friends just barely but continued to charge at Twister. While Aqualad and Robin took the front, Dani decided to turn invisible and flew around him, hoping to get the villain from behind. Her ecto-blast wouldn't be enough to damage the armour, thanks to its wonderful resistance against the ghosts – assuming it was anything like the Fenton Works' designs- but if she managed to kick the helmet hard enough it to fly off, she would have much better chances.

But the universe clearly had something against them today. Twister managed to catch both Robin and Aqualad in separated tornadoes, twirling them around couple times before slamming the boys together and knocking them out in the process. The angry snarl Dani let out after seeing this probably gave her position out and without any warning Twister snatched hold on her leg when she was in middle of delivering her kick. She had barely time to yelp, before the halfa wound herself on the floor next to her friends, barely managing to stay conscious.

"Indeed." Mr. Twister's voice seemed to come somewhere far away. "That was quite turbing… Thank you."

Dani heard a pained moan next to her ear and movement against the cement floor.

"His getting away," Superboy's voice came somewhere further away than the moan, and Dani did her best to blink the stars out of her eyes.

"Is everyone okay?" those words came clearly from M'gann.

"I'm gonna kill that imbecile who taught bad guys how to build anti-ghost armours…" Dani cursed and pushed her aching body up the floor. She glanced down, quickly offering helping hand to Robin who was still trying to get his breath back after getting wind knocked out from him.

"We gotta go after him," the (physically) youngest of their group gritted his teeth, letting the halfa to pull him up.

"Let's stay together," Kaldur advised, mostly talking to Superboy who had already got on his feet and making his way towards the door through which Wally had flown out. "He can't fight against us all forever."

The other nodded, moving as one group out of the power plant, just in time to see a large tornado to carry Wally towards the wall.

Miss M let out a startled gasp and lifted her hand just like before.

"I got you, Wally," she announced and when the dust cleared, the others could see the obviously confused Kid Flash hovering just barely above the ground, completely unharmed. He looked towards them, realisation flashing in his eyes when he noticed M'gann's lifted hand and dropped down.

"Oh. Thanks."

"I would have thought you all had learned your limitations by now," Mr. Twister said, sounding rather annoyed.

"What do you want?!" Aqualad demanded, his almost endless calmness finally starting to crack. It had been a bad 24 hours for all of them.

The man in armoured suit flew up, his voice booming as he spoke above their heads. "Isn't it obvious? I'm waiting for a real hero."

Aqualad turned his head to speak with M'gann. "Read his mind. Find a weakness."

"I-I thought I wasn't supposed to do that." she stuttered, the confusion and the memory of their earlier reaction in the cave making her unsure.

"It's okay with the bad guys!" Robin snapped.

"As long as you only dig up the information we need," Dani hurried to add. "Stay away from the personal stuff."

The green girl nodded her head, biting her lower lip nervously, before she brought two fingers up to her temple, focusing.

"Nothing." she said after a moment, sounding frustrated. "I'm getting nothing."

The information made Dani frown. That couldn't be right. Either that man didn't think or…

"Hello, Megan!" the redhead shouted suddenly, popping herself on the head. "Mr. Twister is Red Tornado in disguise!" Dani and the others looked up. If M'gann was right, then why was he doing this?

"He's inorganic, and android." M'gann continued to explain her theory. "And how many androids you know that can generate tornadoes?"

"They do look kinda a like." Dani admitted, not happy where this all was going.

"Red Tornado send us here," Kaldur tried to deny the claim, but his voice told everyone he didn't believe in his own words.

"After saying we'd be tested soon enough." Robin reminded him. "This is the test! Something to keep us busy." Dani flexed her fists… This was the new low. Even from the League. Just throwing them into situation like this? Without any team training?

"Speedy called it. We're a joke…" Wally sighed bitterly, lowering his head in anger.

His eyes full of uncharacteristic fury, Aqualad slammed his fist against his palm, then turned to walk towards the revealed android.

The three other original sidekicks walked after him. "This game," Wally spat "So over."

"Don't say," Dani growled, for once not flying but marching in the same line with her friends.

When they were close enough, Robin lifter his arm, pointing towards the android. "We know who you are and what you want." he yelled.

"So let's end this!" Aqualad finished, spearing his arms open, while Dani crossed her own over her chest, glaring daggers at their former opponent.

Tornado looked down at them, still playing his little role and trying to sound threatening. "Consider it ended." He lifted his arms above his head where the huge, almost black tornado started to form. The wind around them picked up, making Dani's ponytail fly almost horizontally behind her and blowing the loose leaves and grass away with it. In any another day the sight would have amazed her, but now she was too pissed to care.

"An impressive show." Kaldur admitted, though he didn't look that impressed, before lifting his hand "But we will not engage."

Then the lightning hit the ground in front of them, the following sound of thunder so loud the halfa and others were forced to cover their ears.

"What the heck?!"

"Uh…" Wally asked nervously, his stance telling he was already half ready to speed away if needed. "Can Red Tornado… do that?"

"You think I'm Tornado?" The android had somehow heard their words over the wind. "Ironic."

The lighting hit again, this time with force to cause a huge explosion. Dani tried to protect herself and the boys by forming a dome around them all, but the thing with the lightning was that those zapped you much harder than the ghost hunting weapons she was used to, causing her to make a disastrous miscalculation and her shield broke down, letting her to get electrocuted in the process.

Next time she realised anything, she was laying on the ground while something, or someone, was shaking her shoulder.

"Is she okay?" a familiar voice asked nervously, but Dani wasn't sure where she had heard it before.

"Yeah, she just needs a moment. Ghost and ectoplasm just don't mix that well with electricity." that one was more familiar. Ugh. Who exploded a bomb inside her head?

"Shut up Wally."

"Aaand now she's back," how someone could sound so much like they were rolling their eyes was beyond Dani's understanding, but she honestly was too tired to care.

"We should go after Superboy," Robin said, sounding upset for some reason. "Stay with Dani 'till she is fully awake and take her back to cave if she feels like it. We will take it from here."

She could hear a pair of footsteps to run away, soon followed by explosion that was born when speedsters… well speed up from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour.

"I was just trying to be part of the team…" M'gann mumbled sadly. At this point Dani was already trying to open her oh so heavy eyelids and her mind was trying to figure out how she had ended here. There had been that tornado guy… Red Tornado… Noooo… Someone else.

"To be honest," Kaldur's voice came somewhere near. "I'm not sure if we really have a team."

Huh, that was surprisingly depressing from him.

"Yeah… We suck." Dani admitted, her words turning into something similar to unclear mumble of old drunk. Since when the sun had been so bright, anyway? It hurt her eyes.

By the time she was able to think clearly again and keep her eyes open longer than couple seconds without feeling like they were on fire, the owner of those third disappearing footsteps had been goon for a while and only companion she had was depressing looking Megan who was offering her something that looked like a water bottle of Martian design.

"What happened?" Dani asked, accepting the bottle and took a long drink from it. The water tasted a bit funny, but she was too thirsty to care.

"I'm so sorry." The other girl turned her head away, not meeting Dani's eyes. "I was wrong… Mr. Twister wasn't Red Tornado…" she admitted with quiet voice, clearly expecting Dani to yell at her. "I managed to hide us from him by placing the Bio-Ship between us, but Twister got away. The others went after him…"

Dani rolled her shoulders and neck, literally feeling the satisfying sound her the muscles gave when they popped open. It would take a while before the headache would leave, but otherwise, considering the beating she had earned earlier, she felt okay enough to go after the boys.

"It was a rookie mistake. And you don't know Tornado that well either. We should have realised." she floated up from the ground, leaving to hover only high enough so the grass wouldn't touch the bottom of her shoes. When she turned to give the water bottle back to Megan, she sighed sadly when noticing how much the girl looked like a kicked puppy.

"Look. We all have made some really stupid things during our first year in this job. Trust me, this isn't even near the top ten." The Martian finally looked her into eyes, trying to decide if she was being serious or just trying to make her feel better. "I can tell you about them after this whole mess is over?"

This time the redhead gave the halfa a small smile. "I would like that."

"It's a deal then," Dani grinned then spun around, her eyes stopping a little longer on the deep groove on the ground and on the pile of ruined fabric that looked suspiciously like Superboy's jacked.

And just when she had managed to get him wear it….

"They went that way," M'gann offered, pointing towards the mountains.

"Ah, thanks." Dani chuckled awkwardly before floating towards the direction she had showed but decided then roll upside down to talk the younger teen one more time. "It might be better if you stay behind and clear your head a bit, okay? Boys and I can handle this." M'gann's smile fell again but she still nodded her head, making Dani really feel like a bad guy. "Sorry…" the halfa mumbled, rolling back to proper flying position.

"See you."

It took Dani longer than she expected to find the others. The sun had already started to set, and she had started to be quite sure that she had lost them when she noticed the large tornadoes Twister must have created on distance. The man surely knew how to make his presence know.

From the looks of it, Kid and Superboy were already engaged in the battle with the robot man, while Robin and Aqualad were still rushing through the near parking lot, making it seem like she wasn't the only one who had lost the villain for over an hour.

It almost made her forgive them for ditching her again. Only almost.

Thanks to the more open area and knowledge from their previous encounter they did much better job with dodging Twister's attacks. Dani tried her best to distract the villain with her ice-beams, trying to freeze the pipes on his back or get his legs stuck on the road. Sadly, Twister managed almost always move away on time or used his tornadoes to steer the blasts off from their target.

Dani let out an annoyed growl, blasting away the large piece of the pavement Twister had launched at her, the stone dust momentary making her lose the sight on the villain. Trying to fly away from the cloud she had created, Dani heard sudden yell and saw once again something to fly towards her. She was about to turn intangible but realised just in time that the flying thing was indeed a person and she braced herself for the impact.

The person's weight and momentum made her almost drop them, but she managed to grab hold on her gravity, halting their uncontrolled flight.

Dani let out a relieved sigh "Too close…"

"Umm…" the familiar voice made her look down at her arms, realising for the first time that the person she was holding was Superboy who probably hadn't needed saving. Him being almost indestructible and all that.

She grinned, moving her grip to get a more secure hold from under his arms, and was about to say something back, when the Kryptonian's eyes widened.

"Boat!" he shouted his warning and this time Dani turned intangible without second thought, never even seeing the flying vehicle until it went through them. The experience left Superboy look completely confused and despite the situation they were in, Dani could not but laugh to his expression. He must have forgotten she was callable of this kind of tricks.

Dani flew the boy back to the ground, before turning to look how the others were doing. Kaldur was at the moment the only one trying to fight Twister, while Robin and Kid were hiding behind a broken boat, probably planning their next move.

 _"Listen to me"_ a voice suddenly echoed inside her head, bringing back the unpleasant feeling Dani had experienced earlier that day. She didn't seem to be the only one hearing the voice. Superboy let out a pained and angry grunt, while something had clearly distracted Aqualad, making him to freeze at critical moment, causing him to be thrown on ground near them. "All of you."

"What did we tell you?!" Superboy shouted out a loud, his eyes locked up, looking at something that at least Dani was unable to see.

 _"I know. And I know that I messed up,"_ M'gann's voice continued releasing yet another swarm of bees in the halfa's head, but the pain seemed to lessen the longer the Martian talked. _"But now I'm very clear on what we need to do. Please, trust me"_

"Any plan is always better than no plan," Dani admitted, and weirdly enough she was able to hear her own words to echo in her head even though she had said them out a loud.

 _"We're listening"_ now it was Kaldur's voice echoing her head…

Miss Martian explained her plan to them. It was a good one, but they all needed to work as a team it to work. The original four gave the two new members a mental flash curse of the correct signals, a yet another wild experience Dani had never even imagined herself to be part of, before the teens in the docks rushed out of their covers, trying to distract Twister just little bit longer 'till M'gann would arrive.

Soon there was swoop above their heads and the familiar voice made himself known.

"Hit the showers, everyone" Red Tornado ordered as he landed in between them and Mr. Twister. "I was hoping you could handle this. Clearly you cannot."

"But we got a plan now," Robin tried to argue, so weakly that if he had tried it to anyone who knew him even little better would have smelled the foul play from miles away.

"The subject is not up for debate."

Trying her best to look angry and upset, Dani walked away and even kicked a small rock out of her way for good measure. However, when she reached at the side of the boat, behind which the younger boys had been hiding just moment before, she side stepped to its cover.

For a moment she listened how Mr. Twister started the typical 'I'm he bad guy' blustering, while the boys announced one by one being on position through the mental link they now shared. When the fight between the two wind fielders started, the halfa sunk under the ground, using the sounds above her and the images M'gann kept sending to her to navigate, always staying below Twister's feet.

Finally, she heard a heavy thump. The villain had landed. Perfect…

Wait for it. Wait for it….

_ "Now!" _

Dani flew up and grabbed her hands around Mr. Twister's boots freezing them solid on the ground and ruining all escape plans the villain might have.

"No," Twister breathed when he saw Miss Martian's head in place of Red Tornado's, just before the green girl blasted him away with her powers, only leaving the frozen feet behind.

Dani whistled, following his flight in Wally's tornado and there straight to Superboy's arms.

"Nice hit," she praised, her body still half buried under the pavement.

"Thanks," Megan grinned, chancing back to her normal form just in time before Superboy send Twister in at least as impressive arc into the harbour, where Aqualad was already waiting him. They didn't have to wait long before the red armour reappeared once more above the surface, the explosion Kaldur had created slamming it against the ground hard enough to make sparks fly.

To make sure he was truly harmless, M'gann lifted Twister up, tearing of his only still intact arm and the wind generating pipes from his back. Then Robin added his finishing touch by tossing couple explosives at his back and Twister dropped down like a rock.

As they gathered around the armour, Twister struggled to get up on his knees, electric sparks flying everywhere. Suddenly, there was a hissing sound and Twister's chest opened up revealing a skinny, greying man in green and white jumpsuit. He fell of the armour, face first on the pavement.

"Foul," the man stuttered, clearly not feeling as tough any more without his suit. "I-I call foul."

Dani rolled her eyes. "Of course you do…" She was about to move forwards to grab pathetic the man up, when new sound made the halfa turn her gaze. Megan had just lifted up a huge boulder and now levitated it towards the surrendered villain.

"Megan, NO!" Kaldur shouted, trying to stop the girl but it was already too late; the man was gone, his body crushed under the weight of the massive stone.

They all stared the spot where the man had lain, the shocked expressions frozen on each of them faces. But the Martian just stood there, perfectly calm. As if she hadn't just committed a cold-blooded murder.

Robin was the first to snap out from it and stormed to yell at the green girl. "I don't know how things are done on Mars, but on Earth, we don't execute our captives!"

The girl just smiled back at him, "You said you trust me." with smooth lift of her hand the boulder levitated back up, revealing the crushed remains of an android. Dani threw her head back and let out a breath she hadn't even realised holding.

"Not cool, Megan… Not cool at all."

"That's why I couldn't read his mind." the other girl explained as they moved closer.

Wally kneeled down to study the remains from bit closer, picking up the robotic eye that had somehow stayed intact. "Cool, souvenir." he grinned before pocketing it.

Kaldur turned to talk to Megan, placing his arm on her shoulder. "We should have had more fate in you" he admitted with apologizing tone, which the redhead answered with wide smile.

"Yeah, sorry." Dani threw her arm over the shorter girl's shoulder. "Though are you sure that the guy wasn't a sentient android like Tornado."

The M'gann's eyes grew wide, all colour escaping from her face. "I-I…"

Dani laughed and hugged the girl against her side. "I'm just messing with you. Anyone with any sense for robotics can see its head had no room for advanced hard drive the AI like that needs. It was nothing more than mindless puppet"

"Yeah," Wally confirmed the halfa's point. "You rocked this mission. Get it? Rocked."

Robin let out a frustrated groan. "Ignore him. We're all just turbed you are in the team."

Megan grinned widely to them all, small laugh escaping from her and Dani just had to hug her a bit tighter "Me too."

"Should we get it back to the cave or leave it here?" Superboy asked sounding a bit unsure what they should do.

"The League wants study it for sure," Robin nodded, kneeling down to pick up a random piece of metal from the small crater Megan had created, before turning to look at the said Martian. "How long it will take to get your Bio-Ship here?"

"Oh," she moved off under Dani's arm "It will take just a second. I parked her just above the next block."

"Good. I will go to inform the local police that the danger is over," Aqualad said, picking up the loose red T-shirt he had worn under his jacket. The shade was close enough his hero uniform's shirt for him to be easily recognizable by the civilians, but Dani agreed to go with him to be sure there wouldn't be any confusion.

"Do you think I could go grab some food?" Kid Flash asked as the two oldest members were walking away. "I'm kinda hungry."

"Wally…" Robin sighed as the Bio-Ship appeared above their head. "You are always hungry."

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in the cave, the collected all pieces they had found were placed on table in main hall where Red Tornado was already waiting for them. He studied the remains for a moment before speaking.

"This is quite interesting."

Kaldur nodded "It was clearly created to sabotage or destroy you."

"Agreed," the android said.

"Is that why you wouldn't help us?" M'gann questioned curiously. Dani lifted her brow. She had thought they had managed to do the job without the League's notice, but apparently Megan had informed Red Tornado about the situation, probably after she had been left behind.

"No. This was your battle." he stated. "I do not believe it is my role to solve your problems for you. Nor you should solve mine for me."

The boys lifter their eyes from the screen to look at the android. Tornado's logic wasn't exactly wrong, but Dani had to admit it was a bit… Harsh.

"B-but if you were in danger…" Megan tried to continue.

"Consider this matter closed." Red Tornado finished before walking away, leaving the teens alone.

"Batman, Aquaman, Phantom and Flash, they'd have jumped right in to fix things." Wally shook his head in disbelief.

"Guess if we're gonna have a baby sitter, a heartless machine is exactly what we need." Robin agreed with sarcastic tone.

"Dude! Harsh," the speedster hissed.

"And inaccurate." Tornado called back, the sudden voice making the boys flinch. "I have a heart, carbon-steel alloy… I also have excellent hearing."

"Heh. Right," Robin chuckled nervously, barely managing to tug away under Dani's hand when she tried to pull his ear as punishment for band behaviour. "Sorry, I will strive to be… more accurate."

"And more respectful," Aqualad added, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder.

Dani shook her head then stretched her arms over her head, yawning. This had been a long day and she really needed to get her belt of soon so she could sleep her energy levels back to normal. "I don't know about you, but I could use a long shower and full night of sleep."

"Sounds good," Wally agreed, the yawn spearing at him as the original sidekicks started to walk towards the Zeta-Tubes. "You know, Speedy was so wrong… This team thing."

"Might just work," Kaldur finished his words with calm smile.

Dani laughed, before glancing over her shoulder to say good night to Megan and Superboy but stopped when she noticed the two of them looking at each other awkwardly. The Kryptonian lips moved as he said something and walked away, leaving Megan to stand there with wide smile on her lips.

As Superboy walked past her, Dani placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Great work," she whispered and squeezed his shoulder gently before walking away. "And don't think you are getting away from wearing jacket just because you ruined it." she added with much louder voice "I will bring you a new one for the first thing tomorrow."

She didn't stay to see the boy's reaction, but Dani was almost certain that she had heart a quiet 'Thank you' coming behind her. Everything was perfect.

Almost… The small, traitorous and longing voice in the back of her head whispered. Almost perfect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, wasn't that a long chapter... 13 696 words x_x  
> A little bit world building, couple fight scenes, learning that writing episodes takes a long time and is harder than I imagined xD
> 
> But what are your thoughs? Action scenes are always hardest for me to write so I would like to hear your opinions.
> 
> About the "Mystery Kid Game". Most of you figured out that the 2 other kids are Box Lunch and Youngblood (virtual cookie to everyone who did that) and there was someone who is in right direction but still so far away when it comes to the MK's identity.
> 
>  **Hint 2** : This character owned by DC
> 
> Have a nice summer (or winter)
> 
> Love  
> Kilppari


	4. Team Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not that happy how this chapter turned out, but I hope you can enjoy reading it never the less

_Fenton Works Laboratories_  
Amity Park  
July 19 8.56 CDT 

"So how was yesterday? If we ignore the whole getting attacked by killer robot part?" Maddie asked, just as cheerfully as ever, while the computer on her desk continued its steady humming while processing the samples the ectology had given to it. After finding out that his daughter had been literally hit by a lightning, Danny hadn't wasted any time and had immediately contacted the Fenton family's matriarch, arranging Ellie a medical check-up in the Labs early the next morning, despite the girl's constant claims that she was perfectly fine.

"Better to be safe than sorry" Danny had reminded her as he had pushed Ellie out of the door earlier that morning, the dead serious look in his eyes leaving no room for arguing.

Ellie shrugged her shoulder, leaning a bit more on her arms as she was sitting at the edge of the examination table. "It was fine, I guess. We mostly explored the cave and M'gann tried to bake some cookies. Too bad she burned them."

"Poor girl," her grandmother let out a sympathetic sound as she turned to study the numbers starting to jump on the screen. Ellie couldn't really see the result from the angle she was sitting, but the Maddie was letting out approving hums every now and them as she kept scrolling down the data, giving the girl an impression that everything was okay.

"It seems like you're perfectly fine, considering the beating you got. The blood's ectoplasm and myoglobin levels are a bit higher from your usual. I'd like to take a new sample after the weekend to be sure, but the levels should return back to normal in few days if you don't strain yourself too hard."

"Great," Ellie grinned, picking up her jacket and started to pull it back on before jumping off the table. She used her hands to straighten the hem of her summer dress a little before speaking again. "So I can go now?"

"Just a moment, sweetie," the greying woman ducked under the desk, digging a plastic container from her bag and bushed it on Ellie's hands. "Here is something to share with your friends."

The halfa peaked inside, wide grin lighting her eyes and she swooped to peck a kiss on the much shorter woman's cheek, making her to giggle.

"Thanks, Granny. You are the best."

"Have a nice day!" Maddie called after the girl as she rushed out of the infirmary to the open hall that was better known as the research department of the Fenton Works Laboratories.

Several familiar faces stopped their work to greet Ellie as she moved past their tables. The youngest Fenton had always been a common presence inside these walls - so much so that some of the longest working employees jokingly called her their senior – and she wanted to say she was somewhat familiar talking terms with everyone. She could never beat Grandpa Jack though, who walked around talking to everyone like they were his best friends, giving every new face a silly nickname in less than a week, and somehow memorising the names of his employees' family and friends just by hearing them once.

Ellie had still managed to make some pretty good friends with whom she liked to hang out with while waiting her dad or grandparents to return form some boring meeting or finish the day's experiments. Like Star from Design Department who was always finding cool ways to hide the crude designs Jack and Maddie came up with into more stylist accessories so even the most fashionable person could have their own Specter Deflector or other defensive ghost gadget on their person, and Mikey from Robotics who had always been a bit too eager talk about his projects with everyone who bothered to listen.

Today, Ellie had no time to stop to talk with any of them longer than a minute as she hurried through the building to the parking lot where she had left her car. It a gift from her parents from the year before when she had gotten her provisional license and already had an aura of something… well-used. It was still a nice car, even though Dani would always prefer flying to driving, but it had made Ellie Fenton's life much easier and freer. And sure, maybe Dani could also benefit from the fact that Ellie was now able to carry more ghost tech around in the car's trunk, something her friends from school found hilarious but understandable, even though they didn't know about her secret double life. To them she was just the heiress of the world leading Ecto-Research and -Defence company, a tittle that neither Ellie or Dani were that found of.

It wasn't like she wasn't interest in working in the family business in the future. She actually enjoyed helping her dad and grandparents with their research time to time. She was even allowed every now and then test the new inventions.

But Ellie was also a relist and knew how unlikely it was for her to inherit the company from her dad. Her unborn little sibling or the kids Jazz could possibly get someday would definitely be much better candidates for the job. And more likely to outlive Danny, even if they decided to follow the Phantom's legacy and become heroes.

Parking her car at the mall's parking lot, Ellie picked up the bag she had left there earlier that morning, the brown leather jacket safely tugged right next to the book Aunt Jazz had given her and the newly added container hiding the Maddie's generous gift.

The teen grinned and snatched a sun hat she had taken with her as well as the sunglasses next to the bag and put them on, making sure to hide her open hair under it, making her look like any other tourist filling the city at this time of the year. She wasn't really trying to hide from anyone, but she didn't exactly fell like talking to random people either on her way to the Zeta-Tube.

Honestly, sometimes she envied her friend who didn't have to deal with having civilian identity that was well-known in their home cities. As far as she knew, Kaldur didn't even have secret identity and both Wally and Robin were probably just couple little nerds who didn't really stick out from the crowd. Roy, being a ward of Olive Queen, had been the only one who could have related with her problems, but sadly Dani had never had a chance to tell him how being a half human also meant she possessed a more human-like form and therefore had an identity to hide.

On the other hand, the ability to mess with the redhead had made every boring gala and fundraiser party more bearable to stand. Dani could still remember the boy's face when Ellie had shared her "conspiracy theory" of Merlyn being Green Arrow's evil half-brother and the small rant about "the crazy civilian" she witnessed couple days later as Phantom.

Dani was the first one to arrive to the cave. She found Superboy sitting on the couch, reading some book which tittle she wasn't able to see. The boy, with his super senses, had for sure heard her approaching but didn't bother to lift his head until the halfa unceremoniously dropped the leather bundle on his lap.

"Your new jacket, sir." Dani grinned and opened the lit of the container her grandmother had given to her, tilting it towards her fellow clone. "And a cookie from the Goddess of Goods to light up your day."

The Kryptonian stared at her with blank face, making Dani to sigh. "Just try one. They are butterscotch caramel apple doodles. My Granny's speciality."

To her delight, Superboy did indeed reach out to pick one up and took a small bite, returning to read his book after moving the jacked Dani had given to him aside. Her wide smile returned, Dani flew towards the kitchen, hoping to find the other girl from there.

The Martian wasn't there, instead Dani caught her in hangar, walking out of the Bio-Ship that morphed back to its resting state the moment the ginger's feet touched the ground.

"Oh," Megan's eyes widened when she noticed the halfa, "Hi Dani. I didn't know you were here."

"I arrived just a moment ago," the halfa assured, glancing at the ship behind her. She could not but wonder what the other girl had been doing with it. "Were you checking the ship's systems?"

"Something like that," Megan answered a bit too quickly but Dani, deciding not to pry, just nodded her head.

"Was there any damage from the yesterday? I don't think we've any spare parts for Bio-Ships lying around. Here or anywhere on Earth to that matter."

The Martian teen shook her head, "No, she is perfectly fine." Dani raised her brown at the pronoun her friend had chosen, causing the other girl to blush.

"I-I thought Wally said that all ships are supposed to be called she"

The halfa could not but laugh and shook her head. "He was talking about you and tried to cover up his slip," she explained to the flustered Megan, whose cheeks turned even redder after the reveal. "But he wasn't lying either. Most men like to call their ships and cars she. I guess w-, I mean humans just like to give personalities to objects they spent a lot time with and care. Makes you feel less crazy when you imagine the thing you talk to can understand you."

"I think I get it." Megan said, frowning a little when she processed the information Dani had given to her. "It's just feels a bit weird. On Mars, the majority of our spoken languages don't really have difference between he, she or it." *

"Huh, that's pretty neat," now it was Dani's turn to feel embarrassed. M'gann spoke English so well that it was easy to forget it wasn't her native language. Though, now when Dani thought about it, it should probably be more surprising that Megan was able to hold conservations so naturally and was only confused when facing things like idioms and cultural references. Heck, the girl didn't have any accent to make her sound like a foreigner.

Neither had Kaldur. Sure he was a bit formal, but he had still been on surface only couple years… Maybe, since Aquaman had lived his childhood in USA he had made English Atlantis' second language or something. Yet another thing Dani needed to ask him when she had time.

The girls continued to walk towards the common areas, when Megan opened her mouth. "Did Wally really meant it when he called me beautiful?" she asked timidly, the green hue of her skin making the soft blush on her cheeks look more lilac than red.

"Girl, are you serious!" Dani rolled her eyes, "He was flirting almost every time he talked to you."

M'gann let out a soft 'oh' sound and lowered her gaze on the floor, looking a bit disturbed.

"Hey," Dani said softly, placing her hand on the girl's shoulder, stopping them both. "I can tell him to stop if it's making you uncomfortable."

"Oh, no, no. It's not that." Megan shook her head, embarrassed. "I… I kinda like it. No one has ever shown that kind of interest towards me. I'm not saying I like him. I mean, I like him as a friend, not…"

Dani could not but laugh out of loud to the other girl's rambling that was quickly turning to real panic. "I get it. I get it." she snickered a bit more and patted the red-faced Megan's shoulder. "You like when boys flirt with you. There is no shame in that." then the halfa's smile dropped, taking the temperature of the room down with it, and her expression turned deadly serious "But if I were you, I would think twice before starting to mess with Wally's feelings. He is one of my closest friends and if you even think about manipulating his heart for your own amusement, you will learn what it really means to be haunted by ghost."

The Martian just stared at the girl in front of her, eyes wide. It was hard to tell if she was more shocked by the halfa's sudden change of mood or the threat she had just been given. "I-I would ne-never," she started to stutter, but stopped when Dani's playful smile returned.

"Then we'll have no problems at all," she announced cheerfully, as if nothing had happened, and the hallway's temperature returned to normal. She locked her arm around Megan's elbow, leading the still shaken and even more confused girl forwards. "And seriously, if Wally's endless flirting starts to annoy you, just say a word and I will make him stop."

"I.. mmm… Thank you?"

"Hey. That's what the friends are for"

When the girls returned to the common area, Robin and Kaldur had joined Superboy on the sofa, stopping their small talk when they noticed their friends' arrival and turned to greet them. Wally arrived couple minutes later, earning him a new strike in his and Dani's little game. After the final greetings the room fell in that awkward state when no one was quite sure how they were supposed to start the days plans.

"So…" Robin started, taking a cookie from the container Dani had put move around "About yesterday."

"What about it?" Superboy frowned and crossed his arms. "We took Twister down. It's all that matters."

"We also caused massive damage to the state's and private property, were partially faulty of city wide blackout, didn't protect civilians, some of who are now in hospital because we pretty much ignored them…" Wally listed, lifting his fingers one by one, most likely repeating the lecture his uncle had given at him earlier.

"So long story short. Our teamwork sucks." Dani finished, rubbing her temples out of pure frustration.

"Well, we hadn't really had a chance to work together before." M'gann said, but Robin shook his head.

"No, we have known each other over a week already. There has been a plenty of time to 'bond' and train together. We were just too focused on waiting the first mission to realise we needed be an actual team for anything to work."

Wally nodded, while trying to steal half of the cookies to himself, but luckily Superboy managed to catch the container to himself fast enough. To Dani's silent delight, her fellow clone took another baked good for himself before passing the container to Megan who was sitting next to him.

"Yeah. We'll totally fail the mission if we are still so badly out of the game."

"So what we should do?" Superboy asked, sarcastically. "Play twenty questions?"

"We were thinking about something a bit more active," Kaldur smiled, opening the sport bag on his feet, revealing a volley ball and net he had brought with him. The other sidekicks followed his example, bringing out the items they had brought with them.

Dani had been the boring one, showing up with a team building guide she had borrowed from her aunt. Wally had brought several video games and even couple board games with him, but everyone had to admit that if this had been a competition, Robin would have been the ultimate winner.

"Dude!" Wally's eyes grew wide when he saw what their friend had brought. "Are those laser tag guns?"

Robin shrugged as if it was a normal thing to carry around gears worth of several hundred dollars each. "Batman didn't let be bring the paint ball guns and Supey would have had an advance in it anyway."

The boy didn't seem to mind the weird looks the others were giving him, studying all the stuff they had brought.

"Okay so… What we are going to play first?"

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"This is stupid," Superboy growled, almost losing his balance when Kaldur lifted his leg without him noticing it in time.

"I agree. Can we change the game?"

"You are just mad you can't use your super speed," Robin snapped back. "And keep the tempo. They are reaching us!"

"Megan! Stop levitating your skis. That's cheating!" Dani shouted over Superboy's shoulder, trying to stay in the rhythm Kaldur kept counting for them.

"But Robin told me to."

"No, I didn't!"

Okay, Dani had to admit that maybe this hadn't been the best team building activity they could have started with. The team skis race had seemed like a good idea on the paper: it forced the team communicate and work as one if they wanted to move without falling on their faces and the little competition usually made things more interesting. Also, since their legs were pretty much tied together, none of them could take advance of their powers.

So, without knowing any better, Dani had created two unusually long pairs of skis from ice for two three-member teams, one of the wider hallways of the mountain had been designated as their race track and the teens were separated into two groups.

Sadly, the reality had been a completely another story. Wally and Superboy had almost immediately announced they hated the game and Dani was constantly adding ice around the later one's legs so he wouldn't tear them off from the skis and quit, making the Boy of Steel even more grumpy the longer the game continued.

Robin was the worst though… Their youngest member had turned out to be the most competitive out of them all, acting like winning the game was tied on his honour or something. And apparently he wasn't even beyond cheating or tricking poor Megan to do his dirty work.

Well, two can play that game.

Green light flashed past Kaldur and Superboy towards the currently leading team's feet. When their ski hit against stone floor there was a squishing sound as the green, slime like substance glued the ice ski on it.

"What the he- Dani!"

"Run, boys! Run!" Her laugher echoed through the mountain only for a fleeting moment, an explosion cutting it short couple heart beats later.

In his room, Red Tornado looked at the screens showing the feed of the security cameras, wanting to find the cause behind the disturbance. Returning his interest towards the electronic parts on the table soon after, the android made a reminder into his databank to study the preferred free time activities of young humans more closely in the near future.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This in so unfair…" Dani complained, her arms crossed over her chest as she followed the four cars speed on the tv screen from behind the couch.

"Don't say…" Robin said, equally unhappy of not being allowed to take part of this particular activity.

According to Wally, the two of them were too good with video games and constantly cheating, something that the others hadn't had hard time to believe after what had happened during the last game. So what if Dani had an ability to possess the game characters she was playing, giving them the same powers she had in process? It wasn't cheating in her opinion, just made the game much more interesting her to play. Well, at least Robin still managed to get small revenge by shouting advices – both good and bad – trying his best to make Wally to lose the most embarrassing ways possible.

"We can switch after this round," Kaldur offered, catching a cube that gave him a squid he soon used to blind the rest. He was doing pretty well, despite the fact that, as far as Dani knew, he had played video games only couple times before. Wally and Robin had introduced him to them after some chasing-a-villain mission had turned to the-League-business-only mission, leaving the boys alone in the Flash's base of operation (aka his and Mrs. Allen's home) till the adults were back. Deciding to take advance of the situation, the boys had spent the rest of the night 'educating' their Atlantean friend about the teen culture of the surface. The end results had been more or less interesting, and it had taken Dani and Roy a quite long time to assure him that, unlike the younger boys had claimed, the video games weren't the only sport there was, and their normal diet wasn't entirely made out of junk food.

"Robin can play over my dead body," Wally announced, only barely dodging the shell Superboy had thrown at his character. Apparently, learning how to play video games had been part of the Cadmus' training. That or the Kryptonian's heightened senses were making him a natural talent. "He always hacks the system."

"Or you're just a sore loser," the younger boy shot back, smirking when he noticed what kind of item M'gann had caught "Hey. Hold that blue shell just a bit longer."

"Oh, don't you dare."

"Now!"

"Oh, come one! Just next to the finishing line!" the speedster threw his hands up, accidentally releasing his hold on the controller, Dani's quick thinking being the only thing stopping it from flying across the room.

"Mmm… I'm sorry?" Megan said a bit taken back from her fellow ginger's strong reaction.

"Naah, don't be." Robin cackled while Dani was trying to convince Superboy to give her high five to celebrate his victory. "He should have known better. There's no game in the world that makes people angrier at each other than Mario Kart."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Everyone who thinks that acrobatics counts as a superpower, lift your hand and says I"

"I" five voices chorused, making Robin to roll his eyes.

"You could do just the same if you trained more," he pointed out, earning sceptical looks from majority of his teammates and snort from Dani.

"Yeah. Maybe if we were trained by Batman since we were babies."

"I was nine and you know it."

The halfa waved her hand dismissively "Same thing. Besides, you were already unnaturally good by the time you moved in with the Bat."

"Wait," Wally eyes jumped between Dani and Robin, confused and, for some reason, looking a bit betrayed. "You two knew each other before… well you know?"

Dani shrugged, not really seeing what the big deal was. "Dad pretty much bullied Batman to arrange a 'play date' between us as soon as he found out that Bats had taken a kid under his wing."

"You mean those training sessions where I kicked your butt?" he snickered, and Dani hit the boy's shoulder.

"If I remember correctly, which I do, you were the one who lost more often."

"And yet Bats let me out first," Robin shot pack, poking the still sore wound her pride had gotten the day she had heard the news of Gotham's new child hero, then turned to look at KF. "And no, she doesn't know my secret ID."

The redhead relaxed, and Dani realised the reason behind his earlier reaction. Of course the boy would be jealous if his best friend had told his real name to someone else before him. Well lucky to him, Batman was annoyingly paranoid and was made his ward to wear mask during their little meetings.

"I always thought Dani was the first sidekick," Megan admitted, which made Dani to grimace, Robin's laugher only adding salt in the wound.

"Ooooh, how she wishes that to be true." he managed to jump out of the way just in time to avoid the small ecto-ray the halfa shot towards him, grinning back at her despite the angry glare she gave at him.

"It was still in the same year. Dad wanted me to wait till I was a bit older before letting me to start helping him for real." Dani finally explained. It wasn't actually a lie, but in truth her age had always been a bigger issue to Jack and Maddie than Danny. After a lot of arguing, the Fentons had settled in the age of 14, though Dani hadn't been sure if they had meant her physical or technical age. "But after Robin here stole his title as the youngest hero ever, it took me only couple months to convince him to let me join the fun a bit earlier than planned."

"You father is still the youngest hero without a mentor." Kaldur pointed out while finishing tying the volleyball net on the pole they had dug deep into sand on the beach outside the cave. "Thanks to League, it's something very unlikely to happen in present day."

"How can Phantom be the youngest hero?" Superboy suddenly asked, the end of the net he had been taken care of momentary forgotten as he lifted his eyes to look suspiciously at Dani as if she was some kind of puzzle or oddity. "There are records of him since ancient Rome. He must be over thousand years old by now."

"Haa haa, old joke" Dani rolled her eyes, the corner of her mouth still slightly curving upwards. "Let me guess. Flash told you about it?"

"Mmm, Dee… I think Supey was serious" Robin pointed out and indeed, Superboy was now staring at her with a face that couldn't be further away from joking. The realisation caused a snicker escape from between her lips and Dani hurried to cover her mouth.

"Sorry, sorry" the girl waved her hand towards Superboy, in hopes she wouldn't offend him, trying to hold back her giggles "But Cadmus actually taught you that my dad is some ancient being?" hand against her forehead, she tuned to look up the sky "Oooh, this is too good to be true"

"Are we… Missing something?" Megan asked, looking just as confused why their teammate was finding the whole situation so amusing.

"Phantom is a time traveller, not some old dude." Wally explained while Dani was still trying to collect her cool back together and both aliens let out their own sounds of realisation. "The Ghost Zone doesn't really exist in same time as our world does. Sure, most of the portals between our realms appear in similar timeline, but that's most likely because of that man-made portal Fentons build a decade ago. In reality, the natural portals on the Zone can give you passage to any time period you imagine… Though, it's very likely for you to get stuck in there too." The speedster gave Dani a questioning look "Did I get that right?"

Actually a bit impressed of how her friend had memorised something like that, Dani bowed at the boy, doing her best 'wise master' imitation. "You have done well, my student." then she continued with her normal voice. "And stop reading so much ecto-science books. You're going to steal my job as this team's ghost expert."

The boy grinned and bowed back, using his position to pick up the ball from the sand, making it spin at the top of his finger. "So, no powers and three by three teams? Can I have Megan in mine?"

He didn't get Megan in his team.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Goldfish is in my sight. Approaching in ten,"

"Negative. The Poppy 1 is still in the position. Wait him to move and strike then."

"Him? Wasn't Megan supposed to be the Poppy 1?"

"No, she's Poppy 2. We've known Wally longer so he's 1."

"Okay, okay…" Dani rolled her eyes, following the figure moving around the library. There was creak up and right from her position, and she pulled back when recognizing the familiar shoes. "Be quiet. Raven is here."

Robin nodded his head, his expression turning grim, body pressing lower against the vent's metal wall while Dani herself floated just barely above the ground, hoping her slow heartbeat was sparse enough to fool the Kryptonian.

There was whooshing sound somewhere deeper inside the library when Poppy 1 moved. The footstep she had heard earlier stopped and Dani was sure he was looking around, probably using his infrared vision to find those hiding among the bookshelves. Luckily Dani had just right trick to fool power like that. Breathing out, she released a wave of chilly air around her and several shelf rows deeper, hoping it would be enough to mask her own heat signature. Naturally, the enemy would still know the rough area where she was hiding, but she still had better chances to get him by surprise than Poppy 1 and Goldfish.

There was another whoosh, followed by running footsteps with familiar rhythm. A whistling sound broke the silence: someone had fired their gun, but from her location it was impossible to tell who. Using the distraction for her advance, Dani peaked behind the corner, smirking when she saw her earlier target's exposed back just couple rows ahead her.

She lifted her gun, aiming at the target. The shot on back wouldn't give her the best points, but the scare she would give to him would make it worth the lost.

Goldfish started to turn his head – he must have sensed her presence – but it was already too late and Dani pulled the trigger before diving back behind the cover in case his partner or the remaining member of the third team was anywhere near. The satisfying sound of the alarm broke the silence, telling the halfa that she had indeed hit the bull's eye.

"I'm out," Kaldur's voice announced loud enough for everyone in the room to hear him and soon his footstep started to move away, up the stairs and out of the room. He was the most likely making his way towards the kitchen where M'gann -who had been the first to 'die'- was already waiting the end of the round.

Robin and Dani were on advance now, their team was the only one with two members, giving them an opportunity to watch each other's backs. But Superboy had his Kryptonian powers and Wally's superspeed made him a hard target to hit, allowed him to do those quick attacks that were almost impossible to dodge if he managed to catch you by surprise.

The halfa glanced towards the air vent Robin had been hiding a while ago, but the little ninja had disappeared for good, probably to search a better sniper nest or something. It also meant she needed to navigate on her own for now and hope that she was lucky enough to avoid the enemies.

Dani let out a frustrated sigh, flying behind the cover of yet another bookshelf. Sneaking around without invisibility sucked.

It was when a sound a yet another alarm broke the silence, this time it came somewhere close. Too close. As in from her chest close.

"Nooo…" Dani let out a 'dramatic' cry when she noticed the flashing lights on her west, only now seeing the blue eyes that had been following her every movement behind the gaps between the books. "I'm hit! Robin! You must…" dramatic gasp "avenge me!"

"Oh, grow up Dani!" Wally's voice shouted from distance, but he was cut short by the sound of firing gun from the same direction, followed by amused cackle. "Oi! Not me!"

Dani snickered under her breath, already making her way out of the library when she managed once more caught the sight of Superboy who was quietly making his way towards the sounds.

"Nice shot, Supey." she said, low enough that the other two boys wouldn't hear her. "Wanna be my pair on the next round?"

The small sly smirk broke through the otherwise serious mask, telling her he had indeed heard her words and agreed.

Suddenly, getting killed didn't feel that bad at all.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"So I went back to check him and found him just sitting there, on the ground, staring up in the air as if something world breaking had just happened to him. I swear, he didn't even realise his leg was broken until after I helped him to stand up." Robin laughed to the memory.

"To my own defence," Kaldur said, looking a quite embarrassed and was even blushing to his friends' amusement. "You can't really fall down from high places when you live under water."

"Translation," Wally pointed him with the butter knife he had used to make the sandwiches. "You forgot to jump."

The sheepish smile Kaldur gave was enough to make others to laugh. The image of the younger Atlantean just running over the roof's ledge was just too hilarious to imagine.

It had started to get late when the team had finished their last game, leading them to agree to continue the evening in the kitchen where they, mostly Megan, had started to cook up small dinner for all of them.

While taking care of the salad, Dani had remembered her promise to the other girl from the day before and had started to tell stories about the embarrassing accidents the original sidekicks had had over the years. The boys had soon joined in, at first to give Dani a pay back, but as time passed they had started to target each other as well.

It was actually fun to go through those past mistakes and Dani hoped it would help the two newest heroes to be more relaxed when they would get their first real mission. No one was a perfect hero from the start, her dad was a perfect example of that.

"It must have been weird. To get used to the surface, I mean." Megan said, seeming to only now realise she and Superboy weren't the only ones who we strangers to this world.

Kaldur tilted his head thoughtfully. "It was… interesting," he admitted. "My King's work with the League has made the most Atlanteans more familiar and accepting towards the those living on the surface, but our cultures are still vastly different."

"Well, technological revolution is pretty hard thing to achieve when you live under water," Wally said, but Kaldur shook his head, a bit amused.

"We might not have developed the steam engine that lead to your modern era, but our technology isn't that far behind or ahead of the surface's. We have just focused on different areas."

"What about you Dani?" the girl turned to look at the halfa. "Did you have hard time to adjust on the Earth?"

"I have lived the majority of my life outside the Ghost Zone, actually." Dani admitted, tapping her chin with her finger as she tried to think a way to explain. "My first memories are from this side of the portal. Which is probably a good thing. I have dealt with enough ghosts suffering from the culture shock to appreciate Dad's decision to stay here."

"Oh," Megan said, sounding a bit disappointed.

Robin laughed, "Trust me, Megan. Even if Dani had lived in the Zone her whole life, she couldn't explain it in the way our meat brains could understand it. That place rebels against logic in every way humans can imagine. Seriously, the Fentons have studied the ghosts for decades and even their best theories go down the bin every other month."

The Martian nodded her head, still looking a bit sad because of the reveal, but quickly turned the discussion to another topic.

Dani made a mental note to ask her grandparents if she could take her new friends on the trip to the Zone sometime soon.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Ellie" Sam smiled at the teen as she walked through the door. The woman closed her laptop and placed it on the couch before standing up to greet her daughter. Ellie dropped her hat on top of the box pile standing next to the door way before hugging the woman. "Well?" Sam asked, taking a step back while the hands went on her hips, teasing smile playing on her lips "How it went? Still in speaking terms with everyone?"

"Wow, thanks Mom" the girl rolled her eyes, holding the same joking tone. "Your undying confidence never stops impressing me."

"I try my best" she assured. She moved back to the couch, groaning a little as she sat down, the back pains from the pregnancy starting to bother her daily life. Ellie followed her example, moving a pile of posters and other papers aside before flipping her feet on the coffee table which was covered by even more paperwork.

"Busy day?" the teen guessed before Sam pushed her feet down.

The woman while rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly "Something like that" she agreed.

"Good to know I wasn't the only one" the halfa run her fingers through her hair, sour expression taking over her face even though she wasn't really sure why she was feeling disappointed. She had had a good time with the others and she liked to say they all had bonded. And yet, it was like they had missed something important.

Sam gave her a sympathetic look. "That bad, huh?"

"It went okay." Ellie let her hand fall and turned to look at the ceiling, "Megan and Supey are starting to warm up to us and no one lost their temper today. It's just" the teen sighed, trying to find words to express her thoughts "I don't know. I've worked with boys many times before and getting new people to the gang has never been that big of a problem. But now we are supposed to be an actual team and we are just… not a team."

"Dani," Sam leaned to pat the halfa's leg, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards. "The life isn't some silly cartoon where a punch of people become a dream team after one amazing fight." Ellie frowned a little, not sure if she should feel insulted, and her mother continued. "A perfect teamwork is a result of hard work. You need to learn to know each other and be ready to trust you whole life in the hands of the others. There is also a challenge in figuring out how to find a balance between your vastly different fighting styles, you need to know how your skills can support others during the missions and be aware of the weaknesses that can cause problems.

Trust me, even if Danny, Tucker and I had known each other for years, it took us months to figure out the whole being a real superhero team and find our own places in the machine. And do you remember how frustrated your dad was after the first few League missions?" Dani snorted to the memory and Sam patted her leg again before pulling her hand away "The point is; you'll get hang on your own team dynamics eventually. Just be patient."

"On the condition that we survive from the first mission Bats sends us" she joked half seriously causing Sam to give her pointed look only it to break from the way of small smile.

"Oh, you will" she assured, something dangerous glimmering under the smile that could have otherwise consider amused. To anyone else, it would have been a reminder that Sam Fenton wasn't any means any sort of trophy wife for a rising millionaire, but a huntress who had defended her home even back then when malevolent ghosts were considered to be nothing more than creatures from horror stories and legends. And the hormones and instincts born from her blooming motherhood were doing nothing to suppress that fire inside her.

"Unless Batman doesn't want to lose his head, you better come home alive and in one piece."

In the Gotham City, Bruce Wayne felt cold shivers go down his spine and rubbed his neck without really knowing why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This is purely something I made up for the story and the most likely not true! But also pretty much how the spoken Finnish works...
> 
> Funny Fact: While writing this chapter, I actually went and googled Illinois' driver licence laws for 17 olds to see if Dani is allowed to have a car and drive it… I don't know if I have said this before, but the USA's law system is weird.
> 
>  
> 
> So as said, I'm not that happy with this chapter. It's filler but there are couple hints towards the future reveals and I wanted to introduce the Fenton Labs before it becomes a bigger plot point, plus I wanted to add Maddie in the story. Hopefully I'll do better next month.
> 
>  
> 
>  **Hint 3** : Mystery Kid wasn't in the Young Justice series, at least before season 3. This means that Secret isn't our mystery kid. Sorry everyone.
> 
> Have a nice day
> 
> Love  
> Kilppari


	5. Who Fears the Ghost Girl?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, finally managed to edit all five chapter so they fit with Ao3's code.
> 
> I have a chapter per month schedule so the next chapter will be out next mont, 5.10

_Amity Park  
July 22, 17.28_

Floating in mid-air, Dani turned around slowly, flexing her limps and rest of the body in the different directions and ways only ghosts were callable of.

"I don't notice any difference from the old one," she commented while her waist attached back to the lower body. Danny had come home from the League meeting with a box containing a new costume for her. It looked identical compared to her previous uniform, as she had expected, but Dani had still hoped it would feel different. It wasn't like she had grown any taller in the past year and just in need of bigger one.

Danny flashed a knowing grin. "Check the belt," he advised, and Dani looked down on her hips.

"I don't see anything new-" her words were cut short when she placed her hand over their symbol, only to feel it to give in just slightly. The moment this happened, she witnessed how the white areas on her suit turned into darker, bluish-grey colour and the glowing aura around her body dimmed enough to make it almost nonexist.

"Cool!" the girl laughed, spinning around a couple times, trying to get a better look at her new colour scheme. "Is this for the stealth missions or something?"

Her dad nodded, "It's made out of a new smart fabric that one of Bat's sponsor labs is developing for military's use." he explained and walked closer, studying the changes with a critical eye. "Your hair will still stick out like a sore thumb, though. We could get you a hood or a hat to wear when you are on mission.

Dani snorted "In your dreams." She still reached out, dragging her fingers through her bangs, pulling the hair forwards to study the pale colour with thoughtful expression. "I could put it on bun or something. That way I don't have to worry about the wind catching on my ponytail and giving up my position."

"It might help," Danny agreed, watching how his daughter shaped her hair into messy bun. "Honestly, I have never understood how someone can fight with a long hair without it getting on way."

"Practice," both Dani and Sam, who had just walked in the training area build in their basement, stated in union. "Though how your friends do it with open hair is a mystery even to me," Sam added.

"Technically, Dinah wears a wig and Diana has that headband-crown thing." her husband shrugged, hitting Dani's shoulder playfully when he noticed how she had started to play with the suit's colour mechanism.

Sam wrinkled her nose "Trust me with this. The way Diana wears her tiara won't make her life any easier. And don't make me even start how terrible idea the wigs are. It's really impressive that Canary doesn't lose it in the middle of the fight more often."

"Maybe she uses super glue or something," Dani offered. The idea made her parents grimace, and Dani raised eyebrow, yet didn't see a point to voice the obvious question their reaction woke. It was probably just another embarrassing accident the two adults had caused to themselves as teens.

The teen hero turned back to her human form, her shoes soon hitting the ground under her as she lost the grab on her flying and her hand went on her pocket to check her phone. Krista had sent her a picture from the summer camp she had spent the past two weeks and Wally had literally bombed their 'sidekick' group (that had at the moment only three members. Kaldur had never been part of it because his only communicator was from the League, Roy had left the same day he had gone solo and the team's two alien members had yet to buy their own phones) with theories about the mission they would leave in less than hour. He had also sent half dozen pictures of himself wearing a black version of his Kid Flash costume, under which Dani quickly commented how ridiculous the boy's 'sexy pose' looked and how her suit too had gotten an upgrade, before tugging the phone back in her pocket.

"Do you want to join us on the dinner before you need to leave?" Sam asked, nodding her head towards the stairs. "I was told you probably won't be back until late tomorrow morning and who knows when you will get anything else to eat."

The teen let out an agreeing sound, following the adults up to the stairs. She wasn't really that hungry at the moment, her stomach was already full of butterflies, but her mother was right with the fact that her next meal could easily be a late breakfast, and she needed all the energy she could get in case of good old butt kicking.

The dinner was an unusually quiet affair. Danny tried to give some good advices from experience he had gained from the stealth missions the League had sent him, assuring after almost every third sentence that Batman wouldn't give them anything too challenging as the first mission. He didn't reveal anything about the mission itself, wanting to keep it as a surprise, but Dani was sure Batman had accepted his plan on the other mentors before informing the teen heroes he would meet them in the cave later that day.

Dani tried her best to remember Danny's advices, but to be honest majority of his talk went straight in one ear and out the other when half of her brain was focused in creating theories and horror images what the Batman had planned for them. According the stories Robin liked to tell them, Batman sounded like the most ruthless and demanding mentor out of all Leaguers, but Dani was pretty sure that over half of them were just the exaggerated half-truths her friend had made up to make the Dark Knight to sound way more intimidating than he truly was. After all, there was no way that a responsible adult would order a nine-year-old to avoid their super ninja mentor from the sundown to sunrise without any outside help in city like Gotham as some sort final test.

On the other hand, if Robin wasn't exaggerating…. The halfa was kind of terrified to even imagine what was the Bat's idea of easy first mission for (mostly) trained teenager heroes like them.

When the clock started to near the time for Dani to leave, Danny and Sam insisted walking her to the park's Zeta-Tube. Of course, Dani tried to resist at first, but the look Sam gave at her made it clear there was no room for discussion.

That was how the Ghost Girl found herself in the middle of the overgrown part of the park, captured tightly in the woman's embrace who was her mother in all ways but blood.

"Just be careful, okay?" Sam's voice was lower than usual, her tone sounding almost pleading and if Dani hadn't known better, she would have sworn she was about to cry.

Dani patted her back awkwardly. She had always been clueless when people started to get emotional, one of the few traits she hated sharing with her father. "I'll try my best," she promised, trying to sound confident.

The older woman smiled shortly and stepped back, keeping her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Knowing you and your father, that's all I can ask for."

Dani relaxed a bit "Hey! I'm not that bad," she smirked and crossed her arms, "Dad's is the one who gets in the trouble all the time."

"And you are the one who rushes in to the fight without thinking," Danny teased back, reaching to mess with Dani's hair after Sam had stepped aside. The teen let out an annoyed cry and jumped away, making the man chuckle softly.

"Just try to remember you aren't dealing with ghosts this time," he reminded while Dani was trying to fix her hair.

"Yeah, yeah."

"And if something is about to hit you-"

"Turn intangible," the teen finished, sounding a bit impatient. "I know, I know. Stop worrying so much, Dad."

The smile Danny gave her was almost sad, "It's my baby girl's first official League mission. I think I'm allowed to worry at least a little."

Dani froze and rubbed her neck, once again feeling an awkward weight set on her chest. "Well, I guess it's good then that I won't be the baby of the family much longer," she attempted to joke weakly.

"You'll always be our baby girl." Sam assured. "But you should probably go now. Don't want to be late from your first mission briefing."

"Yeah," Dani smiled back at her and looked around their surroundings to make sure there were no witnesses. It was still couple hours till twilight, and the voices on the distance made it clear there were still plenty of people enjoying their time in the park. And even if the area near the Zeta wasn't the kind of place where the people usually liked to wander - thanks to the overgrowth and creepy urban legend Tucker had spread through the internet- Danny had almost got caught more than couple times when he had used it.

"Good luck," Danny said, and the younger halfa felt herself blush slightly when she noticed how proud the man looked as he stood next to his wife, trying to blink the stubborn tears out of his eyes. "We love you," Sam added gently, her gaze radiating the same warmth as her husband's.

Dani swallowed nervously "Love you too," she called back, then after stepping through the tree, finally truly relaxing when she lost the sight of her parents. She really wasn't good with all this emotional stuff.

She inhaled deeply, counted to ten and exhaled to cool her nerves before lifting her chin and telling the computer her identification code and destination.

The unpleasant feeling of being transported made Dani shutter again when she materialized in the cave's Zeta-Tube, but her discomfort was quickly forgotten when she was greeted by cheerful voice of Miss Martian. She had already been waiting next to the Zetas and was the first thing Dani saw when she opened her eyes.

"Hi Megan," Dani smiled and flew to the other girl's side. "Are the others already here?"

The other girl nodded her head, "Robin is the only one who hasn't come yet. I think he'll come with Batman."

"Probably," Dani agreed, floating casually on her side towards the room's centre where the rest of the boys had already gathered, waiting their 'boss' to arrive.

"Hi, Angel" Wally greeted, thankfully remembering to swallow the mouthful of potato chips before speaking. "Took you long enough. We were already starting to think you got cold feet and decided to stay at home."

"Ha! Says the one who is already stress eating," the halfa shot back, setting herself to hover on the air her legs crossed.

"Fast metabolism," the speedster reminded her, pointing the girl with a chip before throwing it into his mouth. "Which reminds me; strike for you."

"There is no shame to feel nervous before the first mission." Kaldur cut between their playful bickering. He was wearing his civilian outfit, indicating he had spent his day on the surface.

"Me? Nervous? Pff. This whole gig will be like a walk in a park for a hero like me."

Dani huffed and shook her head to the boy's attempt to look cool in front of Megan then turned to look at Superboy. "How about you, Supey? Having any butterflies in your stomach?"

The Kryptonian lifted his eyebrow, silently asking if she was being serious. Dani couldn't hold a small chuckle from escaping.

"Okay, I get it. Our unstoppable powerhouse doesn't feel fear," she winked her eye, trusting it to be enough to let the boy understand she meant nothing bad with her words.

The Zeta-Tube's activated before Superboy could answer, and a familiar voice announced the arrival of Batman and Robin. The latter of two was wearing his civilian clothes like rest of the team -minus Dani- but was carrying a bag over his shoulder, probably containing his uniform.

Red Tornado flew down from his room a moment later and the two League members activated the holo-screens, while the teens gathered around them. Their faces were serious, but it was easy to feel the excitement radiant around each of them.

"Isla Santa Prisca." the dark caped hero began, bringing up a map of an island which Dani couldn't remember seeing before. The name sounded slightly familiar, though. "This island nation is a primary source of a dangerous and illegal neo-steroid; a strength enhancing drug sold under the street name 'Venom'."

Dani nodded her head, vaguely remembering Robin mentioning the stuff when they had been hanging out together. If she remembered correctly, one of the Gotham's less regular villains used it to cause havoc.

"Infrared heat signatures indicate their factory is still operating at full capacity," Batman continued, replacing the maps with series of pictures from a fairly large looking factory and the charts of the activity the League's satellites had detected during the past month. "but all shipments of the Venom have inexplicably cut off. That's where this team comes in."

The man turned to look at the young team "This is a covert recon mission only." he stressed with stern glare. "Observe and report. If the Justice League needs to intervene, it will." he then turned back towards the screen, revealing the next photo, once again a map of the island, but now with two new coordinates attached on it. "The plan requires two drop zones." he started, but Robin interrupted him with a question.

"So who's in charge?"

The other's looked at him and the atmosphere changed from nervous excitement to something more anxious when they waited Batman's answer. The topic of team leader had come up couple ties in the past, but Dani herself had at least forgotten that they even needed one. She had always been either solo player or followed Danny's lead and the idea that one of them should fill that role for them all was kind of scary, which was why they had left the decision for Batman to make.

But instead of clear answer he just said, "Work that out between you."

Dani swallowed. That would end up being an interesting conversation.

Batman returned to explain the mission plan without further interruptions and answered to the questions the teens had before sending them to change to their uniforms.

Since Dani was already wearing hers and M'gann only had to morph her own, the girls headed straight to the hangar, planning to prepare the Bio-Ship ready for launch.

"So how are you feeling? About the mission?" Dani asked casually while the other girl was waking her ship.

"Mmm… Nervous, I think. I mean… What if I mess up like last time?"

"You'll be fine," Dani assured. "We have a plan from the start to the end, made by an expert, and know pretty well what to expect." Miss Martian nodded, but still didn't look that confident. "Megan, trust me. The missions like these usually end up being just long and boring nights listening the henchmen's workplace gossips and how they badmouth their boss."

M'gann smiled weakly. "If you say so."

It didn't take long until Superboy and Robin appeared from the elevator. Both of them looked more relaxed than M'gann, but the Kryptonian's choice of clothing did raise some questions.

"Nice pants." Dani said, hoping to hear some sort of explanation for the quite… normal looking costume. "But I think you forgot to change your shirt."

Sure, the cargo pants he now wore instead of jeans were practical, but Dani had kinda been expecting something flashier and more colourful. Like Superman's. Besides, she had known the Kryptonian over a week now and she had never seen him to take that shirt off. Even once.

Superboy shrugged his shoulders, his expression blank. "Didn't see a point."

"He has the S and it's not like Superboy needs any armour, so it's good enough." Robin agreed, studying the taller boy's outfit with critical eye. "The dark colours are also excellent choice for the covert missions. I can ask Batman if we can get you some basic gear though. You know; lock picks, cable ties, small explosives to create distractions and those kinds of things."

Superboy let out a short, agreeing hum but didn't seem that found of the idea. Which made sense. The boy had shown he liked to rely on his powers the most so gadgets like those which Robin used all the time must seem quite useless in his eyes.

Aqualad and Kid Flash joined them soon after and Batman came to see their leave, once again reminding them that this was supposed to be a covert mission, as if he was already expecting them to blow their cover only so they could beat up some bad guys for fun.

Dani would probably do it anyway. She was half ghost after all. Haunting the living was kinda her thing.

The flight to the Santa Prisca was a silent one. Miss Martian was focused in navigating the ship while the others were doing their normal pre-mission practices. Aqualad spent majority of the flight cleaning his water-bearers just like Robin kept checking all his equipment were working properly and he was fully stocked with the explosives and throwing knives. Superboy on the other hand kept staring ahead at the black ocean and night sky behind the window, deep in his thoughts. Even Wally was quiet for once, though the occasional twitching of his fingers was clear sight of that he was probably repeating some chemical formulas inside his head in superspeed.

Phantom herself played silently with her ice powers, shaping a simple ice crystal floating between her hands first to the shape of a diamond then to miniature Fenton Portal followed by a fish and Valerie statues and so on. It was an easy way to keep her mind calm, but the closer their destination came, the more mission related these figures become. An island then a gun, a factory, needle.

With frustrated grunt, Phantom pressed her hands together, crushing the crystal which shards slowly evaporated to nothingness. Without nothing to do, so decided to follow Superboy's example and turned to stare at the darkness ahead them with bored expression.

"Approaching Santa Prisca," Miss Martian announced after a while, her voice being the first real sound heard during the over hour-long flight and soon, everyone was able to see the shape of the island appear in the horizon.

They continued to move closer a bit longer before the Martian announced the arrival of the first drop-zone in 30 seconds. This was the mark Aqualad had been waiting for and he stood up, the chair under him melting back into the ship's floor. His fingers pressed the symbol of Atlantis he carried on his belt, activating the stealth-tech installed in his uniform and turning it to darker shades of blue and replacing the bright red of his shirt with dark grey.

"Ready"

"Butting Bio-Ship in camouflage mode"

At the corner of her eye Phantom noticed once again how the wings behind the window disappeared from the sight as the mental command caused them to become completely transparent. Miss Martian directed the ship closer the water before the floor opened in front of the Atlantean, unintentionally letting a warm and salty ocean wind whoosh inside the cabin.

Kaldur gave one last nod to his teammates, then jumped through the opening with grace of someone who had been doing the same countless times before, disappearing under the dark waves below them. Miss Martian lifted the ship higher once more, moving the course towards the next drop-zone further away from the beach and closer the factory.

In less than five minutes their earpieces came to alive, Aqualad's professional voice informing them that the sensor system the criminals had built to warn them of the intruder, had been compromised and the team was free to move in.

"Drop zone B," Miss Martian said lifting her hands from the pillars she used to control the ship and they all stood up, the chairs around them disappearing just like Aqualad's had done. The red-haired girl lifted her hand, causing two cables to lower from the ceiling, which the two younger boys attached on their belts. While they were doing this, Dani pressed the DP symbol on her own belt, causing her suit to change colour and her aura to dim. Then, remembering the discussion she had had with her dad before leaving, she took her hairband off and re-tied her hair on a haphazard bun. She shook her head couple times to check if her new hairdo would hold through the night and smiled with satisfaction when no strands escaped.

"How cool is this," Wally turned to grin at Miss Martian and even struck a small pose, once again trying to impress the Martian girl.

"Very impressive," she stated a bit smugly, then her clothes started to change. Gone was the flowing skirt and white shirt that could have been spotted miles away in the dark. Instead, the redhead was now wearing a black bodysuit, still sporting the red x reaching from her shoulders to hips, and her cape had turned into a hooded cloak, which purpose would probably be to hide her bright hair colour.

Kid Flash blinked, a bit baffled by the new outfit and Dani swore he wasn't far away from literally drooling. "Uh, that works too," he admitted and quickly turned his attention towards Superboy. "Hey, Supey, not too late to put up some new stealth-tech."

"I don't think we have anything that'll fit to him," Phantom pointed out. The only clothes with upgrades they had in the ship were Kid Flash and Aqualad's spare suits. Besides, like Robin has said before they had left the cave, the colours Superboy had chosen suited well on stealth mission.

"You sure?"

Superboy huffed and crossed his arms, "No capes, no tights," he said, giving a pointed look towards Robin, Phantom and Kid Flash's uniforms, "No offence."

"None taken," she promised, waving her hand dismissively.

"It totally works for you," M'gann admitted dreamily but when the others turned to look at her, the girl hurried to correct herself only now realising she had spoken out a loud. "In that you can totally do good work on those clothes." She even added the small thumb up for good measure.

Dani tried her best not to snicker to the awkwardness of the situation. M'gann on the other hand was so embarrassed that she hid her face under the hood and turned herself invisible to hide her blush even further.

Well, technically she wasn't invisible, at least in the way ghosts were. She was loser to transparent, like glass or Bio-Ship on its camouflage mode. Hard to detect, but on right angle the sharp eye could still notice the abnormality the three-dimensional body caused. This meant that Miss Martian needed to be more careful than Phantom when sneaking around, though the Martian's lack of cold aura gave her its own kind of advance.

Miss Martian made an opening on the Bio-Ship's floor and the two girls flew down, both invisible, and hit the ground with soft thump. Kid Flash and Robin landed soon after them, much softer thanks to their ropes, and four of them started to look around, studying the forest around them.

Then someone realised to look up, just in time to yelp out a warning before Superboy landed on the spot they had been standing only seconds before, creating a small crater under him.

"What the heck, Superboy?" Phantom snapped as she landed back on the ground, more annoyed than anything. Getting hit by indestructible muscle missile like him wasn't exactly something she wanted to experience anytime soon.

"Knew I didn't need a line," he stated smugly, dusting the dirt and small rocks off, while the halfa could not but facepalm.

"And creating a seismic event may not have helped us much with the covert," frustrated Robin retorted from the root of the tree where his escape jump had landed him. Superboy just huffed to the comment and rolled his eyes, clearly not seeing what the problem was.

Before anyone else could start scowling the boy of his reckless trick, Miss Martian activated her communicator. "Aqualad. Drop B is go."

 _"Head for the factory,"_ Aqualad's voice answered, _"I'll track your GPS and rendezvous ASAP."_

Robin activated his holo-computer, checking their locations on the map and nodded. "Roger that," he said before he rushed deeper in the rainforest, others right behind him.

The jungle at night turned out to be gorgeous. If they had had more time and she wouldn't have known that a dangerous drug cartel was hiding their factory nearby, Dani would have totally stopped to enjoy the views they passed on their way. The only downside was how the weak rain they had faced after leaving the Bio-Ship died down soon after, turning the warm night air way too humid to the halfa's taste, forcing her to release waves of coldness around her to stop herself from constantly sweating like a sponge.

"Did you hear that?" Superboy spoke up suddenly and Phantom stopped to look around, fully on alert. Her first instinct was to check if her ghost sense had detected anything, but besides the normal sounds of the jungle, there was nothing.

"Uh, no?" Kid Flash answered, a bit too bluntly before his eyes widened out of realization. "Wait. Is this a super hearing thing?"

"You do have great ears," M'gann sighed and Dani decided she was spending too much time with Wally. His annoying flirting habit was spearing.

Deciding to ignore his crush's comment, Kid Flash turned to talk to Robin, "Okay, Rob. Now what?" Expect the boy was nowhere to be seen. The halfa led out an irritated groan when she realised what had happened and yet she couldn't say she was surprised. And neither was KF.

"Man, I hate it when he does that."

"We really should put a tracker on him," Dani huffed before pressing her ear piece. "Hey, Aqualad. There are possible hostiles near our location, so be careful. And keep eyes open for Rob. He did it again."

There were couple seconds of silence on the other end of the link before Aqualad spoke. _"Superboy, Kid. Switch to infrared. See if you're tracked."_

Even though Aqualad couldn't possibly see it, KF nodded his head and lowered his goggles, pressing the button on the side. His head turned roughly towards the direction Superboy kept looking at, stopping for a second, then pressing another button Phantom had seen to be used enough times to know it to be a zoom.

"Got a squad of armed bozos in coming," he confirmed with hushed voice, motioning the others to get down while he and Superboy moved a bit closer, hiding themselves behind a rock and fallen log.

"Two squads," Superboy corrected, looking at the darkness left from them. "But they will meet each other before they find us."

"A crossing patrol routes, perhaps?" Phantom guessed just before the sound of near gun shots broke the calm silence of the forest. "Or not"

"No super hearing required now," Kid Flash agreed, turning the infrared function off.

 _"Swing wide, steer clear,"_ Aqualad's voice ordered. He must have heard the gunfire as well.

"Ye-yeah," KF said impatiently, jumping out behind his cover, "Just as soon as I find Rob."

"You are so not leaving me behind again," Phantom snapped, flying after her speeding teammate and even remembered to turn herself invisible while doing so. Their best bet was to assume that Robin was somewhere near the shooters, trying to collect data or whatever Bats had taught him to do on situations like this.

She lost the sight of Kid fast, but Dani didn't let it bother her. Superspeed or not, the boy still left a clear trail of footprints on the ground that was muddy from aftermath of the earlier rain. And slippery too. Something the speedster must have not realised since she heard a yelp and something to roll down the hill. Phantom just hoped he wouldn't blow their covert because of that.

The gun shots ceased, and Dani cursed.

Of course he had blown their covert….

Speeding up, Phantom flew through the forest and found the road just in time to create a shield between the gunmen and Kid, protecting him from the bullet rain that the mean looking guy with white and black wrestling mask and his friends send towards him.

"Hi, boys!" Phantom shouted, making herself visible again and dropping her shield in the process "Wanna play a round of 'Who Fears the Ghost Girl' with me?*"

Two men let out a startled shouts and Phantom rewarded them with ecto-blast on stomach that send them flying against the trees behind them, knocking the men out in the process.

"You lost!" she laughed, turning intangible to avoid the bullets now meant for her.

On her right, Superboy charged from the bushes with angry roar. He tackled the closest person, the masked man, slamming them on the ground, causing disappear from Phantom's immediate view of sight in progress.

The halfa flipped around in the air, turning to freeze the guns of some trigger-happy grunts in red who were a bit too eager to add couple extra holes on Kid Flash while trying to see if the other boy was handling himself.

"What is wrong with you guys?!" Robin's voice complained, and instead of winding Superboy, Phantom saw the Boy Wonder to knock two more bad guys on the jungle floor. Oh, so now he had decided to join their company. "Remember covert? Why didn't you follow my lead, vanish into the jungle?"

"Boohoo," Dani muttered sarcastically under her breath and moved to cover Miss Martian's back. One of the red dudes had tried to sneak up of the Martian, but he hadn't been prepared of the Ghost Girl landing on his back, making him to fall face first on the mud.

"Thanks," Miss Martian flashed her a thankful smile that she dropped almost immediately. With angry grunt, Miss Martian pushed the air with her both hands and Phantom heard a yelp behind her, followed by a painful sounding smashing sound.

"Thanks," Phantom smiled back at the girl after quick glance over her shoulder, witnessing the two men laying on the ground, but Miss M had already turned her attention towards the bickering Robin and Kid.

"You told me I could only read the bad guy' minds." M'gann pointed to the speedster, sounding rather annoyed about something Wally had said earlier but what Dani had missed. Though from M'gann's answer it was easy to guess the topic.

The running footsteps interrupted their argument and teens turned their heads just in time to see how one of the red coats was trying to escape. Phantom lifted her hand, ready to shoot an ecto-blast at him, only to lower it almost immediately when a familiar figure dropped in front of their runaway.

There was a small zapping sound, flash of silvery-blue light and soon the man lied on the ground, unconscious.

Aqualad turned to look at the others, but not before he had stomped the gun the man had been carrying in million pieces, looking rather annoyed and tired at the same time, reminding Dani of Mr Lancer after finding a student sleeping in the middle of his lecture.

"I suppose we all can agree that the stealth part of this mission didn't work out" he commented dryly.

"Well… There is still the 'nobody will notice if there is no one to notice' tactic we can try" the halfa half joked.

"Dani, no… Just no"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This is reference to a pretty popular Finnish children's game called "Who Fears the Black Man?" (Kuka pelkää Mustaa Miestä?). It's a type of tag. And yes, thanks to English slang and internet, some people have started to claim that the name of the game is racist (it's supposed to mean a literally black man or a person wearing black) and nowadays the Black Man has been replaced with names like "Ice Man", "Snow Man", "Troll" etc…
> 
> Guest: I had to look up who Elisa Deerlane even is so no, she isn't our Mystery Kid.
> 
>  **Hint 4** : The canon version of Mystery Kid is 100% alive. MK being a ghost is just a creative freedom I took.
> 
> Have a nice day, leave a review, remember to drink enough water etc. etc.
> 
> Love
> 
> Kilppari


	6. The Team Dad

In the end, they used a rope that Robin had somehow managed to hide in his unity belt to tie the goons on the nearby trees. The two groups were separated on their own little packages to minimize the start of a new fight that would surely catch the attention of the nearby factory.

As always, Robin was the one able to name the villain of the hour, the masked man or Bane, the most famous user of the Venom. The men in red, on the other hand, were clearly part of something else than the gang this particular villain had under his control.

“I recognize those uniforms,” Robin told them, sounding a bit worried. “They belong to the cult of the Kobra.”

Phantom tried not to grimace. The cults were never a good thing. Especially for ghosts. There was way too much summoning and messing with dead people involved.

“I’m sure Batman would have mentioned it if he knew a dangerous extremist was running Santa Prisca’s Venom operation,” Aqualad said, sounding rather serious as well.

“I’m not,” Phantom piped in, earning annoyed glare from the said man’s protégé.

“I agree with Aqualad.” Robin nodded, “And since there’s clearly no love lost between the cultist and those goons, I’m betting Kobra came in and tossed them out. That’s why the normal supply lines have been cut off.”

 “We get it,” KF cut in, sounding frustrated “Kobra wanted super cultists. Mystery solved. Radio Bats, and we’ll be home in time for-”

“These cultists aren’t on Venom” Robin interrupted. “Kobra’s hoarding the stuff. We don’t leave. Not until I know why”

And of course the redhead caught the boy’s slip up immediately “Until _you_ know why?” he asked, challengingly

“Uh-oh,” Dani breathed out, a ghost of a smirk tugging on her lips as she crossed her arms and focused all her attention to follow the show starting to fold in front of her. On the corner of her eye, she could see Miss M turn her head towards Superboy, silently asking him what they should to do but the boy, being just as clueless as she was, just shrugged his shoulder.

“This team need a leader” Robin announced, straightening his back and trying to look bigger than he truly was.

“And it’s you?” the older boy questioned, pointing his finger at Robin before moving close enough that the tips of the two boys’ noses almost touched. “Dude, you are a 13-year-old kid who duked out on us without a word”

Robin just laughed out a loud. “And you’re a mature 15? You blew our cover first chance you got.” he mocked back, his words full of gibe.

Aqualad moved in, trying to get the arguing boys calm down. M’gann, who was standing between the two clones, turned to look at Superboy once again. “Don’t you want to lead?” she asked, tilting her head towards the other boys.

The Kryptonian scoffed and shook his head, “No. You two?”

“After the Mr Twister fiasco?” she shook her head and made a face.

“You did all right.” Superboy insisted and actually smiled for once, making the Martian to blush, which she tried to hide by turning her attention towards Dani.

“What about you, Phantom?”

She could not but snort, “That would be a disaster. I can’t even babysit three under ten years olds and a dog without destroying something.”

Miss M blinked “You babysit?” she asked, and Dani wondered if she should feel offended from the amount of surprise in the other girl’s voice.

“Ghost kids mostly. Though I’m pretty sure that it’ll be awhile till anyone asks me to do it again” she said, rubbing her neck sheepishly and M’gann giggled, only to be cut off when the volume of KF voice rose to new level.

“Yeah?! You don’t even have superpowers!” the two boys were now walking away from the very tired looking Aqualad, who had probably decided to let the two youngest members just blow up their steam on their own.

“Neither does Batman!” Robin snapped back at him.

“Duh, you’re not Batman” Kid pointed out sarcastically.

“Duh, the closest thing we got”

It took all Dani’s will power not to facepalm.

Suddenly the masked man, Bane, tied on the tree started to chuckle, causing all six teens to freeze, surprised to find out he was already awake.

“Such clever ninos. But you only know half the story” The last part made Phantom to narrow her eyes and she floated closer. The man must have been listening them for a while. “Let me show you the rest. Get you in the factory via my secret entrance”

“There is a secret entrance,” Miss Martian confirmed as she knelt in front of the man, bringing hand on her temple in means to try dig deeper in his mind. “But he is also hiding something”

From where Phantom was floating, she could see how her friend’s eyes started to glow white, but Bane wasn’t impressed.

“Ah, ah, aah, chica. Bane is not that easy,” He smirked smugly, and Miss M lowered her hand with frustrated groan.

“He’s mentally reciting football scores en Espanol,” she explained, interestingly changing the language at the last word before turning to give an apologetic look at her teammates. “This might take a while”

“It’s not complicated,” Bane insisted, still as confident as ever, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”

“Until he becomes my enemy again” Dani reminded darkly. “And we can find our way in even without your help.”

“Ah, but will you get near enough to get the answers you want?” the man asked that cursed smile never leaving from his face. “The Kobra will notice soon his sheep haven’t returned from patrol and rise an alarm. You want out here before it happens, don’t you?”

Phantom gritted her teeth, hating the fact that the man was right. The teens shared a look, and Aqualad nodded his head, though reluctantly. Phantom floated forwards, taking a good grip on Bane’s shirt and pulled him up, turning him intangible in the process which caused the ropes around him to fall on the ground.

Bane rolled his shoulders to get the blood move better in his veins after being tied up a relatively short time “Gracias, fantasma”

“You welcome, human” she scoffed, flying on Superboy’s side, who kept glaring at the gang leader in the way that would make any sane person think twice before doing anything stupid.

True to his word, Bane started to lead them down to the road at the direction of the factory. The path ended at the edge of a cliff and Bane pointed towards the valley opening before them where they could clearly see the building they had been looking for.

Robin and Kid Flash activated their binocular and goggles to scout the area around it while others waited patiently, keeping a careful eye on their so-called guide and the forest around them.

“Look at all that product.” Robin mumbled to Kid and probably Superboy too, since he was probably able to see what was happening near the factory with pare eye. “A buy is going down. But if Kobra’s not selling to the usual suspects, then…”

While the young detective was musing with this new mystery, Bane walked back towards the forest, Phantom and Superboy’s eyes following his every move.

“We need to identify that buyer,” Aqualad finished Robin’s thought.

“Just what I was thinking” Wally said, lifting his goggles back up, while his words made Robin to snort.

“Yeah, you’re the thinker”

“Sarcasm? Dude. A real leader would focus on getting answers.”

“Can you two be quiet for five minutes?” Phantom asked. The Bane’s presence was already putting her on the toes and lose the humour in the two boys’ childish bickering. When Bane picked up a huge boulder, she tensed -ready to blast it off from his hands if needed- but he only pushed it aside, revealing an old mine shaft entrance.

Bane gestured towards the entrance as if he had just revealed some impressive secret. “Answers are this way.” He promised to them before walking inside. The young heroes stayed behind a moment, unsure if it was safe to follow the man in tunnel that could just as easily be a deadly trap.

“So, now El Luchador is our leader” KF scoffed, wincing when Robin smacked his shoulder when walking past the speedster after Bane.

The rest of the team followed them in silence, studying the worn looking wooden supports that were clearly starting to decay thanks to the eternal moisture of the tropical island. At least there was enough light coming for the small electric lamps for them to see where they were stepping, but the hastily made wiring reminded Dani a bit too much of the fire hazardous mess her grandparents had created in their old lab to feel completely comfortable.

Finally, their small group reached a metal door immersed on the tunnel’s wall. Bane opened it by pushing a single button on it and giving them access in a room that seemed to be full of metal lockers, meaning it had to be a storage of short.

Robin looked at Phantom, pointing his head towards the door across the room and the halfa nodded, understanding what he wanted her to do. Turning her upper body invisible, she passed her head through the door’s metal surface and started to scan the surroundings to see if it was safe to move in.

“All clear,” she said after pulling her head back to the room and making herself visible again, opening the door for the others to go through. Robin was the first one to sprint out and by the time the others followed, he was already nowhere to be seen.

Bane frowned “Has that little fool already been caught?”

“No,” Aqualad answered with tired sigh “He just does that.”

“Stay put,” Wally suddenly commanded and pulled his goggles down “I’ll get our intel and be back before the Boy Wonder”

“Wait, Kid.” Aqualad tried to stop him by grabbing hold on the boy, but the speedster was already disappeared between the machines.

“Great chain of command,” Bane commented sarcastically, and the remaining teens looked at each other, slightly embarrassed that the villain was there to witness their chaotic teamwork.

“I could go and get them,” Phantom offered but Aqualad shook his head.

“Let’s not get separated any further. We move in and learn what we can. Robin and Kid will find us when they are ready.”

The group moved closer towards the factory’s main entrance where they could hear the sound of moving engines. They hid themselves behind large wooden boxes that Bane told them to contain the Venom his gang was supposed to sell weeks ago.

And yet, the cult didn’t seem to be lacking from the product.

“It’s a massive shipment” Aqualad sounded slightly bewildered by the amount of drugs the cult was moving around.

“Yeah,” Superboy agreed. “But they’re only taking the new product off the line. They’re no touching this Venom”

“Maybe freshness counts?” Miss Martian offered, rather unsure.

“Or they are selling a completely different drug” Phantom threw in a guess of her own, just before Superboy glanced up, frowning.

“Helicopter is coming,” 

The others turned their attention from the cultists towards the windows near the ceiling, those with sharper eyes only barely noticing the darker dot on the sky moving towards the factory.

Aqualad, being the best strategist out of four of them, was the first to form a plan of action.

“Phantom, Miss Martian. Turn invisible and move closer. We must identify the buyer as fast as possible.”

 “Roger that,” Phantom smirked, before she disappeared from the sight of the others. Slowly, she started to fly towards the area where the cultists started to gather, trying her best not to cause air flows that could give up her presence. Just slightly on her right behind, the halfa was able to see the small mirage like disturbance following her, the only proof that Miss Martian was with her. She must be able to track Phantom’s location thanks to her telepathic abilities, since she wasn’t trying to form a mental link just yet.

As the copter landed, Phantom narrowed her eyes suspiciously. The vehicle was obviously a military model, something that normal drug dealers wouldn’t get on their hands that easily or even want to use because of those being way too eye-catching compared to the smaller and sleeker ones that were much more common. Whoever the buyer was, they clearly had enough money and firepower behind their backs to make them unafraid of some extra attention.

Around them, Kobra and his little cultist started to gather around the landing site, the two closest of the leader sticking out from their red cloaked friends like shore thumbs. The first one was a thin woman with half shaved red hair and dark lipstick, the tattoo on the bald side of her head being the only implication towards her association with the Kobra’s cult, while the other one was a large monster of a man. He was made entirely out of muscle and his unnaturally thick and grey skin had torn open on several places, revealing the muscles under it. He looked almost like some kind of ghost, but the lack of aura around his body and the silence of Phantom’s ghost sense proved him to be a living being.

That realisation brought a strong feeling of wrongness with it, and Dani shuttered in disgust.

Before the engines had time to the stop, the helicopter’s door opened, revealing a silhouette of a lone man. When he stepped on the moonlight, Phantom’s eyes widened from recognition and her body stiffened. This was a bad.

 “Lord Kobra” the masked Caucasian greeted the much paler man

“Sportmaster,” the cult leader answered with sharp nod before signalling the woman on his side to move closer. She opened a small box on her hands, so the blonde could see its content. “The shipment is ready”

Sportsmaster picked up one of the dark blue vials, studying it with high interest. “The new Kobra Venom?”

“A complete success. Our friends won’t be disappointed” Kobra confirmed, motioning towards the huge man at his side. Phantom didn’t like at all what his words were implying. If the stuff they were creating was able to turn normal humans into those… things, then there was no way she was letting the well-known villain like Sportsmaster, who often worked for League of Shadows, to get his hands on it.

“This is a game-changer. Finally, we can go mano-a-mano with the Justice League.”

Phantom hands curled into fists as she listened the man’s bragging. Right now, she just really wanted to blast the vial on the villains’ possession to millions of pieces, but she knew they needed to keep their covert. The cultists were already moving the first crates inside the helicopter and if she revealed herself now, someone would very likely manage to escape with at least part of the shipment.

_“Aqualad says that the buyer is called Sportsmaster,”_ Miss Martian’s voice echoed inside her head and it was close that Phantom didn’t yelp out a loud.

_“M’gann!”_ she hissed back angrily, _“Warn me next time you’re going to do that”_

_“I’m sorry! I didn’t realise-”_ The girl’s almost panicking apology was cut short when the sound of gunfire from the factory got their and the bad guys’ attention.

“It seems you have a pest problem,” Sportsmaster commented dryly and halfa cursed loudly inside her head, probably teaching her Martian friend some new words in process.

“Bane has had a problem to stick in our agreement,” Kobra answered just as coldly and pointed towards the factory. “Mammoth”

The beast grinned and jumped in the air, barely missing the two heroes spying them, closing the distance between him and the factory without touching the ground again before breaking through the window with loud crash.

With unsaid agreement, the girls hurried to help their friends. Superboy was taking the care of the Mammoth guy, while Aqualad was trying to protect himself from the cultists’ fire with water shield he had created, occasionally shooting small blasts of water towards them to keep the cultists from coming closer.

And of course Kid, Robin _and_ Bane were nowhere to be seen.

With pissed growl, Phantom dived down and grabbed hold on the nearest red-cloak, throwing the man in high arch on top of his friend before she dropped her invisibility. It would do nothing to hide her glowing hands when firing an ecto-blast anyway, therefore making invisibility waste of energy in situation like this.

Doing her best to lower the number of the cultists charging on Aqualad and Superboy -thought most of the cultists were smart enough to stay out of his and the beast way- but there were just too many of them and the halfa found herself more often dancing around the air as an untouchable distraction.

Then suddenly, there was a high whistle in her head, followed by a slightly uncomfortable feeling that was becoming more and more familiar every time M’gann used her abilities on Dani.

_ “Everyone online?” _

_“Yeah,”_ Superboy was the first one to answer, sounding rather unhappy, but was soon followed by Kid’s voice.

_ “You know it, beautiful.”  _

_“We have coms for this, you know,”_ the halfa reminded while tackling a group of cultists down from the catwalk.

_“Comms are jammed. We need to regroup,”_ Aqualad commanded, but Robin seemed to have other ideas.

_“Busy now,”_ he announced, sounding rather annoyed.

_“Robin, now!”_ this command was much sharper, and angrier, but it seemed to be just what they needed since the Boy Wonder gave almost immediate, but grumpy, ‘fine’ and soon Phantom could see him to rush towards them from outside the factory.

_ “Strategic retreat. Kid, clear a path.”  _

_“That’s just another way to say we’re running away,”_ Phantom complained, still following the others when they rushed back towards the room where the entrance to the mines was hidden.

Superboy was the last one to get in. He slammed the large metal door shut, jamming it on its place, and Dani even cowered it with thick layer of ice for good measure, hoping that it would slow Mammoth down at least a bit longer.

The crash and rapid gunfire that followed them way too soon, told the halfa that her work had been for nothing.

“Superboy,” Aqualad yelled once again, this time out a loud over his shoulder, “The support beams!”

The boy seemed to get what the older teen had in mind and hit the wooden beam down with all strength he had as he ran past it, repeating the process with the following one and sooner than they had prepared, the tunnel started to collapse.

Out of reflex, Phantom turned herself intangible to protect herself from being crushed by the falling stones and dirt. Trusting in her powers, she let her speed slow down till she knew she was holding the end of the line, ready to catch any of her teammates that were in danger of becoming a pancake. Luckily it didn’t come to that. Miss Martian had caught Superboy in her telekinetic hold and was speeding two of them towards the exit way waster than the Kryptonian could have run in suck limited space.

Then the lights went off, leaving the teens to continue their escape in deep darkness until the booming sounds around them finally ended.

“I think we can stop now,” Aqualad’s voice called over the noise of their footsteps and everyone stopped. When getting close enough, Dani was able to make up the shapes of the others -being a halfa did come with an excellent night vision, but her eyes needed bit more time to adjust properly- and she was relieved to see that everyone was there and standing.

“Is everyone okay?” this time it was Miss Martian who spoke.

“Just peachy,” Kid assured, sounding rather out of breath. His blood sugar must have gone low again.

“Still in one piece,” Robin said, with surprisingly frustrated tone.

“And I was already dead, so you aren’t going to get rid of me that easily,” Dani tried to joke, but her attempt was ignored. Letting out a disappointed sigh, the halfa lifted her hand, ejecting enough ectoplasm on it to make it glow and lighting the tunnel with an eerie green light for the sake of the other’s eyes.

Everyone seemed to be physically just fine. Maybe a bit shaken up, which was understandable since they had just managed to escape a real murder cult. Robin was the only one whose face she couldn’t properly see, him standing back towards the group, studying the collapsed tunnel even before she had brought out the light.

“How could my first mission as a leader go so wrong?” the boy suddenly asked quietly, probably not even realising he was speaking out a loud.

Dani and Wally both raised their eyebrows at the words, but Aqualad managed to spoke up before either of them managed to comment the boy’s self-promotion.

“You do have the most experience.” Aqualad agreed “But perhaps that is exactly what has left you unprepared. Fighting alongside Batman, your roles are defined. You two do not need to talk. But this team is new. And the leader must be clear, explicit.” he said, adding hint of sarcasm in the last part of his speech. “He cannot vanish and expect others to play parts in unknown plan.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to hold everyone’s hands?” Robin snapped back, whirling around to face the others.

“Well, didn’t Bats do the exactly same to you back then when you started to work together as partners?” Phantom asked, crossing her arms. “Or think us as a sport team, even if we all know how to play, we all have our own styles and it will take a while before we can win a game.”

The youngest huffed and turned his gaze down to the ground, but after couple seconds of silence, his shoulders fell. “Ah, who am I kidding?” he said, sounding so defeated, before he lifted his head to look straight at Aqualad with wide grin. “You should lead us, Kaldur. You’re the only one who can”

“Please,” Wally scoffed, ready to continue the argument that had been going on the whole night. “I can run circles-”

“Wally, come on” Robin cut in “You know he’s the one. We all do.”

“Hello, Megan.” M’gann laughed “It’s so obvious”

“I could have told you” Superboy stated with smug smirk.

“Weren’t you the one who was already leading us out there?” Dani asked, playing innocent.

That only left Wally as the one who hadn’t said his opinion after his earlier opposing argument and the others turned to stare at him, the unsaid question clear in their eyes.

“Okay” the speedster grinned, finally admitting his defeat without any bitterness, probably realising that the others were speaking the truth.  

Giving his friend a small, thankful smile, Kaldur turned back towards Robin and placed his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “Then I accept the burden. Until you are ready to lift it from my shoulders.” he promised to the boy whose smile seemed to widen from his newly named leader’s words. “You were born to lead this team. Maybe not now, but soon”

“Alright,” Kaldur turned to look at rest of them with more serious face. “Our first priority is preventing that shipment from leaving this island”

“Funny,” Robin said, his smile turning to something more like a teasing smirk. “I had the same though”

 

* * *

 

 

As the team hurried towards the mine’s entrance, Kid and Robin filled the others in with the information they had managed to gather from the computers while they had been gone. Apparently, the drug Sportsmaster had dubbed as a Kobra Venom, was a mixture of Bane’s original Venom and Blockbuster formula that some crazy scientist had created and used on himself in Cadmus, turning him into that blue monster Dani had only seen from pictures Robin had showed her after the boys’ little ‘adventure’.

It made the user permanently three times stronger than those who used normal Venom, meaning they really needed to make sure to destroy every vial and copy of the drug’s formula there was to avoid the catastrophe that surely would follow if the bad guys got a chance to use it to create an army.

“Sportsmaster is the supplier/buyer, but it still doesn’t crack,” Robin started to ponder out a loud. “He doesn’t have the juice to acquire the Blockbuster formula or to get Kobra to do his dirty work”

“And neither of them have the chops to bond Blockbuster with Venom.” Kid agreed. “That took some major nerdage.”

“Kobra mentioned some ‘common friend’. They might be the master mind behind all this. But it still doesn’t explain why they bothered to see the trouble of taking over the Venom factory through Kobra instead of paying Bane to do the job.” Phantom said as she flew over Robin, trying to read the information his holo-screen was showing.

“I believe the expression is ‘the tip of the iceberg.’ ” Aqualad stated, halting when they reached the entrance and saw the man waiting them there. There was something metallic on the ground around his feet and the small device on his hand looked suspiciously like a detonator.

“Halt, ninos,” Bane commanded with that infuriating smirk back on his face that made Dani to do nothing but want to punch it. “I’m feeling explosive”

A high-pitched beep came above their heads and the teen glanced up with shocked expressions, only now noticing the line of bombs above them. Dani knew she could create a shield to protect them from most of the damage if Bane decided to press the button, but there was a high chance that the explosion from this close distance would destroy her shield completely, leaving them to crushed by the falling dirt and stones.

“You betrayed us.” Aqualad asked, sounding shocked and moving Dani’s desire to punch Bane the need to hit the back of her friend’s head for being so trusting towards a bad guy “Why?”

“I want my factory back,” Bane stated as if it was obvious.

_ “Kid, you need a running start” _

Ah, now she got it. He had made the bag guy monolog. Clever.

“So I forced you into a situation where you would either take down my enemies or die trying. If the latter, the Justice League would certainly have come to avenge their sidekicks. And when the smoke cleared, Santa Prisca would be mine once more.”

Bane’s smirk turned in something that Phantom would have described as sweet if there hadn’t been murderous gleam in his eyes.

“Blowing the tunnel with you inside should have the same effect” he lifted the detonator above his head, ready to press it down. But only seconds before his finger hit the button, there was flash of black and red shooting past him and the object disappeared from the drug lord’s and without him even noticing.

“With what?” Kid’s smug voice came from behind the man where he was leaning against the nearby tree, playing with the detonator in his hand. “This trigger thingy?”

Bane roared in rage and tried to swing his huge fist on the speedster but was stopped by Miss Martian when she lifted him up in the air, leaving the man hang there like a harmless ragdoll.

“Finally,” Superboy said as he walked bellow Bane, looking maybe a bit too happy about how the situation had ended. “Drop him”

With that cute little smile of hers, M’gann did just as he asked, sending Bane straight onto the waiting fist of Superboy.

“Let me guess.” Dani asked as she watched the man fly through a tree or two before stopping lay unconsciously on the ground. “You heard him planning this with his men before we even made the deal and just didn’t want to tell us about it.”

Superboy turned to look at the others with an impish smirk.

“Of course”

 

* * *

 

 

The plan they had was simple and destructive, just like Dani liked them. Get in, distract the bad guys so Miss M could place the bombs that Bane had so generously donated to them, and blow the helicopter up and all existing Kobra Venom with it.

They hid in the near jungle growth, waiting the moment when they would finally manage to fix the little sabotage Robin had made before the team’s earlier escape.

They didn’t have to wait that long before they got their cue when the sound of activating helicopter filled the otherwise silent jungle. Aqualad gave Kid a nod and the boy lowered his googles once again before shooting out of their sight. It didn’t take long before they could hear the tell-tale sound of gunfire.  

Superboy was the second one to move in, distracting Mammoth just long enough for Phantom to break a pipe for Aqualad to use. His water-bearers glowed as the Atlantean harvested the water under his will and directing a strong blast to knock the mutated man away from the help of the cult.

“Sorry. Not the plan” the Kryptonian called after Mammoth and started to run towards the copter’s entrance where he was supposed to give distraction and cover for Miss M.

Phantom herself dived after Aqualad, shielding him from the bullets and blasting away every cultist who tried to get a shot on her friend while he was focused controlling the water stream with his bearers. When they were far enough Phantom saw how Aqualad’s tattoos started to glow, and he dropped one of his bearers. Using his now free hand, Aqualad placed his palm against the water stream, sending a shock through it and electrocuting the beast that had once been a man who let out a pained scream that mush have been heard through entire island. But it was enough, and Mammoth fell on the ground, unconscious.

Phantom and Aqualad hadn’t much time to celebrate their small victory. While they had been distracted with the monster, the helicopter had managed to get up in the air, already flying over the tree tops towards the ocean. Someone was trying to escape with the shipment and the only thing they could really do was to hope that Miss Martian had managed to plant the bomb.

Then there was a loud bang and fire exploded out of the copter’s metal hull. It made the pilot lose the control of the vesicle, sending it to spin towards the ground without control. And by some miracle, it landed straight at the top of the factory, creating a new and ten times bigger explosion, destroying both the building and vehicle completely.

“Wooo!!” Phantom threw her hands up and cheered to the chaos they had managed to create by accident. Her fun has cut short though when she heard Aqualad call her name and the halfa turned to see Robin being pinned on ground by Kobra’s ugly boot.

When Kobra saw them rush to the acrobat’s help, he frowned, looking more annoyed than anything else.

“I am plagued by mosquitoes” he spat in disgust.

“Good,” Robin growled, struggling to get the crazy cult leader’s foot off his chest. “ ’cause  this mosquito is mighty concerted over your pain” the Boy Wonder spun his legs, managing to make Kobra to lose his balance enough for him to escape and jump to the others side, where the six teens determined glares challenged the man to dare and try fight them all at once.

Probably realising that the odds were against him, Kobra narrowed his eyes, starting to move backwards towards the jungle. “Another time, then” he stated calmly before disappearing into the bushes and the shadows on the jungle.

Surprised by the man’s sudden decision to retreat, it took them a couple seconds too long to rush after him and by then, Kobra had already vanished.

Robin’s shoulders dropped, and he let out a frustrated sigh, disappointed on himself for letting the man to get away so easily, before he walked back to the others. The teens studied the mess they had managed to create with varying expressions. Dani herself would have claimed the mission being a success, but the longer she looked the destruction around her, the surer she was that Batman wouldn’t probably be that happy.

“We picked the right guy to lead,” Robin said with wide smile walking to Aqualad’s side “Automatically making you the right guy to explain this mess to Batman.” he added with cackle and made Kaldur’s lips press together in thin line when he realised what was waiting for him back in the cave.

“Robin, don’t be mean to our Team Dad,” Dani chuckled, swinging her arm over Kaldur’s shoulder. The Atlantean lifted his brown, but she just gave him a teasing wink in return.

“The what?” Superboy asked, confused.

“Team Dad,” she grinned back at him “He is the leader, oldest and the most mature. So yeah, Kaldur is clearly the dad figure of the team.”

Kaldur gave her unimpressed look while others chuckled, but then Megan stopped to think something.

“But by that logic, wouldn’t that make you the Team Mom?”

The horrified look on the halfa’s face was enough to tell her opinion of the idea while Robin and Wally burst into laughter.

“Oh, yes. Dani is obviously the Team Mom. How we didn’t see this before?”

“Is she going to pack us lunches for the missions? Kiss our boo-boos?”

Oh, if only the look could kill.

“If you two don’t shut up this second, I’m gonna be the one who gives you the boo-boos”

“Okay, okay…” Wally snickered, whipping the tears out of his eyes “Mama Bear.”

The only thing saving Kid from the ecto-beam she shot from her eyes was the superspeed he used to dodge the attack. Chopping Robin on his arms, the two of them disappearing into the jungle, loud cackles following their way.

 

* * *

 

 

It took them hours to tie up the awaking cultists and destroy the remaining Kobra Venom vials. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to find Sportsmaster, only the abandoned parachute the man had left to hand on the branches of a tree and the trail of footprints that lead to the sea. The only upside was that while searching the villain, Dani had managed to find the machine that was jamming their radio signal, so they could finally call the League in and report the results of their mission.

Needless to say, Batman wasn’t happy.

“A simple recon mission. Observe and report” Batman lectured the teen heroes and Dani tried her best to mimic Kaldur’s soldier like stance, keeping her expression blank despite her desire to argue back. It wouldn’t do any good for anyone right now and she really didn’t feel like getting an extra harsh punishment “You’ll each receive a written evaluation detailing your many mistakes.”

Dani grimaced mentally. Evaluations meant reading assignments and she just loved to get homework in the middle of the summer holidays.

“Until then. Good job”

Wait what?

Dumb stricken, the teens turned to look at the man with wide eyes, none of them believing for a second they had managed to get a compliment from the Bat himself after doing pretty much done the opposite he had told them to do.

“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy” Batman explained, not losing his lecturing tone. “How you adjust to the unforeseen is what determines success. And how you choose who leads determines character”

For some reason it felt like the last one was meant mostly for Robin, but it might have been only Dani’s own imagination.

“Now, return to your homes and get some rest. We’ll send your evaluations in few days.” Batman said before turning to leave “Robin, you have five minutes”

The youngest grinned widely but didn’t say anything until his mentor had left the room.

“Can we all agree that Batman hit his head while we were gone?” Robin asked with joking tone “Because that was the longest compliment I’ve ever heard him to give.”

“We are just so awesome” Wally teased back “So, does anyone feel like celebrating the successful end of our first mission? There is a great pizza place not that for from here”

“Pass,” Superboy said and Dani echoed him after a long yawn.

“I think we all should to go sleep first,” Megan agreed with apologetic smile. “But maybe tomorrow?”

The others let out various agreeing sounds before saying their short goodbyes, the half of the team retreating towards the living quarters, while Robin, Wally and Dani made their way towards the Zeta-Tubes to travel back to their home cities, joking with each other the whole way there.

This whole team thing. It had never felt better.

 

* * *

 

Later that day when Ellie was laying on her bed, stomach full of the celebration dinner her family had thrown after the girl had woken up from her nap, and hair still slightly damp after the earlier shower. She was tapping her phone, writing and deleting he same message over and over again, trying to figure out the right way to place her words. Satisfied to her end result, Ellie pressed the send button and then plugged her phone in the charger next to her bed before placing it on the nightstand. With final yawn the girl turned to her side and snuggled deeper under her blanket, knowing very well that she probably wouldn’t get an answer for her message any time soon, if at all.

_“Just returned from the first mission! Went St. Prisca to check why Venom was cut out, found Kobra and Sportsmaster making some new, even crazier juice. KF and R caused a lot trouble and A is now the leader! Blew everything up, but it went better than Twister thing. Compliments from the Bats!!_  
Wish you had been there.  
-D”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there was this month's chapter. I hope you liked it.
> 
> Nothing else to say this time... Expect that the first snow is currently falling down from the sky while I write this. Too bad it's melting as soon as it touches the ground.
> 
> But back to the Mystery Kid game.
> 
> **Hint 5:** The canon Mystery Kid is a villain.
> 
> P.S. So I sometimes write scenes that I won't add in the chapters since Dani can't be part of them or they happened in the past (like Danny and Batman talking with Superman about Superboy or origin of Angel nickname KF has given to Dani) but will be mentioned/hinted through conservations. If you are interested to read them, would you prefer them as "new story", at the end of the chapter or as their own chapters (an most likely replace "normal chapter" of the month)?
> 
> I'll put a poll in my bio if you feel like answering to this.
> 
> Have a nice Autumn and remember to stay warm
> 
> Love
> 
> Kilppari


	7. Schooled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New month, new chapter. I'll be busy tomorrow so I decided to post this one a day early.
> 
> Unlike in case of FF.net, I'll add the "extra story" in it's own chapter. It's easier that way
> 
> EDIT: Why no one told me that I mixed up the names of the episodes? The name of the chapter is now the right one: Schooled. 'Infiltrator' will be he next one...

* * *

_Mount Justice_

_August 3, 13.00 EDT_

"Hi, guys!" Dani called as soon as she materialised in the Zeta-Tube, looking much more cheerful than she normally was. She even managed to ignore the unpleasant feeling that the teleportation gave her for once. It had been almost two weeks since their first mission and Canary had finally managed to find time to train them. Almost a whole month after she had promised to do so…

"Hi, Dani" Megan waved to the other girl from the next to the floating hologram around which everyone else but Superboy had gathered. Wally and Kaldur seemed to be focused in some sort of game while the other two were either waiting their turn or already defeated.

"Since when we have had an air hockey in here?" Dani asked as she floated closer.

"Robin programmed it a while ago." Wally answered, deflecting the red puck back towards Kaldur who had to focus much harder to keep up with the speedster unnatural reflexes.

"It wasn't that hard." the Boy Wonder shrugged, not really sounding that modest while explaining "The system was already able to create 3D maps, so all I needed to do was to add couple extra codes to allow the movement and control of the puck and then I just loaded some sound effects."

"Cool" Dani stated simply "Can I play against the winner?"

"If you think you can beat me" Wally answered with cheeky smile, before vanishing from their sight for a second and appearing again with banana on his hand. And all this happened while Kaldur was sending the puck back towards his end of the table.

"Show of," Robin rolled his eyes.

To Kaldur's praise, he managed to keep up with Wally at least two more minutes before the speedster hit the puck behind his hand into the goal.

"Was that the third one?" Dani asked and Kaldur nodded, stepping aside to give the halfa room to take his place at the end of the table, while Wally munched his banana.

 _"_ _Recognize: Superboy, B04"_ the robotic voice announced, and they all turned to look towards the Zeta-Tube where the last member of their team had arrived.

Dani tilted her head a little when she noticed the bad mood that was almost radiating from the boy as he walked towards them, curious to know what happened to make him so angry.

"Hi, Superboy." M'gann greeted him with happy smile "How was Metropolis?"

But the Kryptonian just ignored her, marching straight through their hockey table, causing it to disappear.

"Not well, apparently" Dani sighed and made a mental note to check the news after the training session. Whatever had happened to the boy while he had been on the city, it had surely created plenty of rumours about Superman having a son running around. Unless someone had given Superboy his DNA donor's civilian address and Supey had managed to have a talk with the man behind the suit, which Dani doubted greatly. She might know the man's first name, but even her was panned to know the secret that was Superman's civilian identity.

Dani's thoughts were interrupted when a newly arrived person cleared her throat to get their attention.

"Ready for training, everyone?" Canary asked as she walked in Martian Manhunter on her side.

"Black Canary! Uncle J'onn!" M'gann cried out happily, running to embrace her uncle.

"Megan," the older Martian smiled and placed his hand on her shoulder "I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought I'd see how you were adjusting."

"A few bumps, but I'm adjusting" Megan assured, while rest of us were standing nearby, not really wanting to disturb their family moment, but still impatient for Canary's session to start.

"That's all I can ask"

"Stick around." Canary's sharp voice cut in and every eye turned to stare towards Superboy who had tried to get away from the situation. "The class is in session"

Superboy stopped and turned around, looking like he was about to argue, but in the end settled for only crossing his arms and sulking there were he stood.

Walking to the center of the room, Black Canary activated the training program that would record their movements, making it easier for them to see their own mistakes afterwards.

Or at least that was how Robin had explained it to Dani the week before when he had challenged her to train with him. For old times sakes, he had said. In reality, the boy had just wanted to test his new boo-staff.

She turned to toward where majority of her students were standing. "I consider it an honour to be your teacher. I'll throw a lot at you." she warned and Dani grinned, exited by the challenge the older hero had just promised "Everything I learned from my own mentor-" Canary winced in pain while removing her jacket, revealing the bandage tied around her arm. The woman gave them a small and maybe a bit sheepish smile "And my own bruises."

"What happened," Megan asked, worry clear in her voice.

"The job," Canary answered simply, immediately moving back to her teaching mode. "Now, combat is about controlling the conflict. Putting the battle on your terms. You should always be acting, never reacting"

Canary gave the five of them challenging smile. "I'll need a sparring partner"

"Right here! Yeah" Kid lifted his hand before anyone else had even chance to open their mouth. Moving closer to Canary, he wolfed the remains of what had to be his second banana and threw the peel in to the trash at the side of the room. "After this. I'll show you my moves"

The look on Canary's face was enough to tell she was both used to weak flirting like Wally's -who Dani clearly needed to remind that flirting with an adult, dating, woman might not be a smart move- and how she was going to love beating the red-head's ego down from the stratosphere where he had lost it.

Canary didn't waste any time. She attacked, throwing her fist towards Wally's head. The boy managed to block the attack with his forearm but was taken off guard when Canary suddenly ducked down and swept him off from his feet.

When he hit the ground hard and with a loud thumb, the others could not but winced out of pure sympathy, no matter how much the boy had deserved it.

"Hurt so good" Wally groaned, sounding like he had gotten wind knocked out from him, before attempted to collect himself up from the floor.

"Good block" Black Canary complimented and offered him a helping hand. "But did anyone see what he did wrong?"

"Ooh, ooh. He hit on teacher and got served?" Robin suggested with a laugh.

"Dude!" Wally hissed back at him, embarrassed. Dani tried to hide her chuckle under a fake cough, Megan trying to do the same, but failing.

"He allowed me to dictate the terms of-" Canary corrected with dead serious tone, her voice making it clear she wasn't going to allow them to fool around during her lesson. And yet, Superboy decided to interrupt the teacher.

"Oh, please" he scoffed, and Dinah, narrowing her eyes dangerously, turned her head just enough to see the teen behind her. "With my powers, the battle's always on my terms. I'm living weapon, and this is waste of my time."

The other teens shared worried glances, arguing silently if one of them should cut in before the Boy of Steel would make a complete fool out of himself.

In Dani's opinion, Supey needed this. Their two first missions had proved that the boy relied too much on his powers, making him both predictable opponent for the bad guys to fight with, but also too reckless for the stealth missions in general.

And it looked like Black Canary had same ideas.

"Prove it" she challenged him with a smirk of a woman who was going to make you regret your words.

"Uh-oh" Dani sang under her breath, already knowing how this fight was going to end. Miss Martian glanced towards her then the older Martian on her side, worried to see what was going to happen, but then relaxed, most likely being calmed by J'onn's telepathic words.

Superboy lifted his brow, surprised to hear Canary, who everyone in the room knew to be physically weaker than him, actually wanted to fight him. Yet, he still walked to the center of the room, stopping to glare at the older hero, who didn't show any sights of backing down, before both of them lowered into the fighting positions.

As expected, Superboy was the first to act. He charged his fist towards Canary with speed that was unnatural to any normal human. And yet, Canary sidestepped, dodging the attack with ease and grabbed hold on his arm, throwing the boy on the ground just as hard as she had done to Wally only moments before.

Robin, being the child who he was, couldn't but laugh to his friend's misfortune, only trying to hide his giggles after Kaldur elbowed him and gave the boy warning look.

Superboy get back up on his feet and growled fury in his eyes, angered by both the humiliation their teacher had caused and the younger teen's mockery.

"You're angry," Canary stated calmly. "Good, but don't react. Chanel that anger into-"

The woman's teaching moment was interrupted when Superboy let out enraged roar and shot towards the hero like a feral animal. Once again, Black Canary was ready. She jumped over him, using Superboy's shoulders to control her flight and causing the boy to lose his balance for a moment. Blindly, Superboy swung his arm back, trying to hit his opponent, but the woman's lower position made him to miss. Unfortunately to him, Canary did not miss the easy opening he had given to her. With low kick, she swooped his legs of the ground, slamming Superboy back to the floor.

Dani grimaced. That last fall had looked pretty painful and judging from M'gann's reaction, she agreed with her.

And then there was Robin who just had to laugh again to Superboy's pain.

"That's it!" Superboy snapped, slapping away the helping hand Canary had offered to him. "I'm done."

"Training is mandatory," Dinah said to him, still managing to keep her gentle tone as she placed her hand on his shoulder. Superboy shrugged her off and turned to glare at the woman who refused to give in.

Dani had to wonder how long they would have stood there if Batman hadn't called.

"Batman to the cave" The Caped Crusader's voice broke the tense silence in the room and everyone moved to get better view on the large screen that had just appeared in the middle of the room. It sounded like the man had a mission for them and the teen were more than eager to get another opportunity to test their skills on the field.

"Five hours ago, a new menace attacked Green Arrow and Black Canary."

Dani tried not to glance towards their teacher discreetly when her name was mentioned, realising immediately that the attack was probably the reason behind her injury, quickly returning her eyes on the screen when a picture from orange haired metal man appeared on the screen.

"The attacker was callable of studying, then duplicating the powers and abilities of its opponents." The video feed Batman was showing to them made the halfa swallow nervously. The new villain was spinning Superman around like a ragdoll, knocking anyone who tried to come near him aside, including Flash. "Arrow called in enforcements, which nearly proved disastrous as our foe gained more and more power with each new combatant."

"Whoa," Kid breathed, his eyes wide from fear mixed awe. "One guy with the powers of the entire League?"

"In the end, it took nine Leaguers and four hours to defeat and dismantle the android."

Dani wasn't sure if she should feel relieved when Batman revealed that the villain hadn't been able to copy powers of the all members of the League like Wally had assumed. Nine was still over half of the current members of the Justice League, and it seemed that the metal man had been able to copy powers from majority of the heavy hitters. Including her dad's.

Well, at least she now knew where he had been this morning.

"An android?" asked Robin who had paid attention on different detail than her, as he stepped forwards. "W-who made it? T.O. Morrow?"

"Good guess, Robin. But Red Tornado doesn't think so."

"The technology bears the signature of Professor Ivo" Manhunter explained, surprising the more experienced protégés.

"Ivo? But Ivo's dead." Aqualad argued, clearly alarmed from this new reveal.

"So we all thought." Canary turned to look at him "Or hoped"

Dani frowned out of worry. This was the first time any of them had heard about villain to come back from the death, if you ignored the literal undead like Grundy. It was rare, but not exactly unheard for a battle between hero and villain to end to the bad guy's dead -always thorough the villain's own hand or indirectly through the hero's inability to move fast enough- but no-one had ever managed to trick a member of the League to believe they hadn't survived.

It seemed that Professor Ivo wasn't called a genius for nothing.

"To make certain this threat is permanently neutralized we're sending two trucks carrying the android's parts to two separated STAR Lab facilities in Boston and New York for immediate evaluation. Every precaution is being taken."

Translation: the trucks will have ghost shields to protect the parts from ghosts like Technus and Skulker who without doubt would love to get their hands on the new technology like this.

"We'll have four additional decoy trucks to create confusion in case Ivo or anyone tries to recover the remains. You'll split into undercover teams to safe guard the two real trucks."

"Yes!" Kid cheered and pumped his fists. "Road trip"

"So now we take out your thrash?" Superboy asked coldly, not even close being as happy as the redhead from their new mission.

"You had something better to do?" Batman questioned strictly and Superboy turned his head away, smart enough to see he was not in the position to start arguing with their boss if he wanted to stay in the team.

But that didn't mean he was happy about it.

Kaldur's communicator pipe. "Coordinates received. On our way."

The teens rushed out of the room towards the hangar. In the corner of her eye, Dani noticed Canary to reach out to stop Superboy before he managed to leave, making the halfa frown slightly. Hopefully whatever the heroine planned to tell the boy would give him something that would help him to progress that anger of his. Because if Superboy was going to be like bear waken up from its hibernation for the whole mission, this road trip would end up being just terrible for all of them. Even without any attacks.

"Do you think the android had something to do with Mr Twister?" Megan asked from her friends and Dani turned to fly on her side, so she could talk to her better.

"They might have a connection." she admitted, trying to remember the structural similarities between Twister and the new android or other indicators that would hint towards a common origin. "This is a second android attack within a month."

"I don't think so. Their objectives are too different." Robin said, not bothering to turn his head to talk the girls behind him as he ran through the hallways.

Kaldur nodded his head, agreeing with the younger boy's words "Robin is right. Twister was designed to capture and sabotage Red Tornado's programming. This android was built to destroy the whole League, gaining an unstoppable weapon in process."

"Yeah and building a new killer robot in less than a month. I don't think that even Ivo can do something like that" Kid commented, making Dani to click her tongue out of annoyance.

"So two bad guys just happened to get an idea to build humanoid android this close to each other? Yeah, right. Ivo could have a partner, you know."

"Who?" Robin asked, sceptically. "T.O. Morrow? Those two hate each other's guts."

Megan frowned slightly "Surely there are more villains who can build androids?"

"Not as far as we know" Kaldur explained, his expression darkening "Though a new player could be a possibility"

"Oh, great" KF rolled his eye. "More crazy geniuses. Just what the world needs"

"These two incidents being connected isn't our concern right now," Kaldur reminded his teammates as they reached a crossing that would take them into the locker rooms. He turned to talk at the other members, making them wait a moment in silence as Superboy caught up with them. "It'll be better if we change in motorbike suits here in the cave, so we won't stand out from the other guards that will be following the decoy trucks. There is always a risk that whoever is behind this attack has placed a mole somewhere close and our presence will be a dead giveaway which trucks are the real ones."

"Oh, yeah. We have those now" Kid said, then turned to give M'gann one of his flirty smirks. "But don't worry, babe. I look just as perfect in that suit than in this one."

Robin snorted and patted his friend on the back "Just keep telling that to yourself"

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Litchfield County  
August 3, 20.08 EDT_

Hours later the Team and roughly a dozen guards STAR Labs had hired in civilian biker outfits like theirs, were hiding behind the trees, waiting as the android's parts were backed in the lead boxes and carried in trucks under the League's watchful eye. Their group was close enough to hear the sounds coming from the edge of the crater that the fight between the android and the Leaguers had caused, but far enough that no one with normal eyesight wouldn't be able to know in which truck the parts would go. This left the guards in complete darkness when it came to the content of the truck they were ordered to protect and cut out the risk of them leaking the information to unwanted third party.

Naturally, the six young heroes were exception in this.

The teens were already wearing their helmets and keeping their silence, trying their best to hide their true ages from the adults around them. It wasn't perfect, mostly because of Robin and, in smaller extend, Kid Flash were gaining some unwanted attention from the adults around them thanks to their still mostly child-like builds.

Phantom had once again activated her belt to hide the ghostly aura around her. The motorbike suit she had been given was big enough to fit over her normal costume with only small amount of trouble. Sure, this way it was a bit too tight and warm for her liking, but she would live.

Finally, the sounds of starting engines reached in their ears and the 18 bikers started their vehicles, moving closer towards the edge of the forest. Some of the guards shared the final encouragements and jokes with their friends before driving after the already distancing trucks.

Phantom was part of the group of nine-person squad following the three Manhattan trucks. Aqualad had teamed her up with Robin and Superboy, giving them the same high ground and stealth advance that Miss M offered to the Boston team. She hadn't agreed with the plan at first, arguing that the teams would be more balanced if she and M'gann switched the places. She and Superboy were the Team's biggest heavy hitters, when it came to the raw strength and number of powers and making them work together was a bit overkill in her opinion. Aqualad had reasoned his explanation how he didn't wish to place Miss Martian and Superboy in the same team because their lack of experience.

Dani was pretty sure Kaldur also wanted to place Superboy under her and Robin's care because of their experience and skills gave them best chances to control the clone if he lost his temper. Again.

They drove around 20 minutes before reaching a junction where the first two trucks would turn on different route. The one of them would later take yet another route to confuse the possible attackers even further.

One of the guards, whose side Phantom was, turned to shout his good luck wishes. Dani answered with lift of her hand, not wanting her ghostly echo to break her cover, before the six civilians drove after the decoy trucks, leaving their small group of three behind.

"Team Beta separated without problem. No suspicious activity on sight" Robin reported to Aqualad through the communicators the League had gifted the Team to use.

They didn't get answer immediately, which was expected since their other team's separation point was supposed to be couple kilometres further away than theirs.

 _"_ _Team Alfa secure as well,"_ Aqualad's voice answered and Phantom felt herself to relax. _"Contact us if there is anything suspicious on your end. Otherwis, report every 15 minutes."_

"Got it," Phantom said. "Safe ride and remember to follow the speed limits. I don't want to be the one explaining the police why over half of us are too young to have a licence."

Phantom was pretty sure she heard Robin say something, obviously sarcastic, in response but his words disappeared on the speeding wind around them. She could ask him to repeat, but she knew the boy well enough to know he wouldn't give an honest answer.

The teens continued to drive in almost comfortable silence for a while, Robin and Phantom occasionally throwing in comments about the scenery and other things they saw on the road. It was still hard to ignore Superboy's obviously bad mood he hadn't shown any sights of getting over with.

Robin was the first one to get tired of the situation and speed his bike up enough to drive next to the Kryptonian. There it didn't take long from their youngest to open his mouth, most likely planning to coach his friend to open up a little.

"If dislike is the opposite of like, is disaster the opposite of aster? See, instead of things going wrong, they go right."

Phantom let out suffering sigh, not wanting to believe that was the boy's opening line. Robin really needed to work with those if he ever wanted to find himself a date.

Superboy didn't seem that impressed either, leaving their teammate hanging without answer.

"Uh, clearly you're not feeling the aster. What's wrong?"

"Canary" Superboy answered with his usual grumpy tone while Phantom reached his other side to join in the conservation. "And what business does she have teaching combat skills to a guy with super strength?"

"Look, you should still listen her. Learning combat can be a huge advance if you ever have to fight someone as strong as you. Like overshadowed Superman, or something." Phantom reminded him, missing how his grip around the bike's handles tightened.

"Besides, taking down stronger guys is part of the gig." Robin continued "Canary learned that the hard way. Same with Batman and well, me."

These clearly weren't the answers Superboy had hoped to hear. He vroomed the engine loudly and speed ahead his two teammates, leaving Dani to shake her head in disappointment.

"He'll come around," she assured to Robin whose face had fallen ever so little. "If not on his own, then after I lock him in room full of those red sun lamps. Then I bet he can't even beat Wally in arm-wrestling."

Small bark of laughter escaped from the boy "Couldn't imagine any less humiliating way to teach him a lesson?" he asked, his true impish nature clear in his tone.

Phantom grinned, veering her bike a bit closer to the boy's. "I'm not sharing my best plans with people who have a history in stealing them" she joked back while Robin tried his best to look innocent, the obvious laugher shaking his shoulders.

Their little moment was cut short when something started to fall from the sky, attaching on the truck with loud clangs and soon Phantom could swear she heard a chorus of giggles that sounded like a patch of annoying monkeys.

"What the-?"

 _"_ _Team Beta, our truck is under attack!"_ Aqualad's voice came out from the comms that very same moment, causing Robin and Phantom to share a worried look before their hands flew on their ears.

"Kind of figured" the Boy Wonder replied back to the team leader while Phantom started to listen the chatter coming from the guard groups following the other trucks, only to be greeted by silence and carefree discussion.

"And it seems that we are the only ones" she told the others, gritting her teeth out of frustration. "How in Pariah's Keep those things found out which ones are the real trucks?"

"Monkeys, Dee! Those are robot monkeys!" the halfa gave a sharp look towards the boy whose laugher sounded almost exited. "Totally Ivo's tweaked style."

"I hate monkeys" Superboy growl trawled in their ears, completely lacking the younger boy's glee towards the sudden appearance of the little thieves that were currently trying to break inside the truck's trunk. The car started to swerve, indicating that the monkeys they were seeing weren't the only ones and the driver was in the trouble. Channelling ecto-energy on her hand, Phantom blasted several robots off, but there were already too many of them and new ones took the place of their fallen friends almost immediately.

"Hey, hey. Switch your rides to battle mode!" Robin shouted over the monkey giggles and the wind to the two older teens, his own already turned into little one-wheel bike, the other wheel now working as part of drone that would offer him some personal air support.

"No point" Superboy stated before jumping off his bike to the roof of the truck, sending the motorbike to spin without control towards his teammates.

"Oi!" Phantom let out an annoyed shout as she pushed herself up from her own ride and started to flight to keep herself going. "Try not to kill your teammates, Superboy!"

"I don't think his listening!" Robin called back at her from the back of the truck where he had managed to jump after rogue motorbike had taken the bike under him as well, kicking the robot monkeys off with best of his skills. "And go to check the front before we crash this thing too!"

"On it!"

Phantom turned intangible and speed up, passing her hand through as many monkeys on her way as she could, causing them to short circuit and drop off under the wheels. When she reached the cab, the situation turned out to be pretty much as bad as she had expected. The windsscreen was cracked and the terrified driver, whose face she could see through the side window, could barely see where he was driving through the robots covering the glass.

"Need help?" Phantom asked, pushing her head through the door inside the truck. The man screamed and yanked the wheel violently. It would have sent them all on the field if Phantom hadn't realised to grab and steady the wheel before they would fly off the road.

"What the f-" the driver managed to gag out, his eyes wide behind the helmet's visor.

"The League send us." Phantom said sharply and snapped her own visor up, so he could see her eyes, the one of the most recognizable traits she and her father possessed. There was no time for the longer explanations and the driver seemed to realise that from her tone. "It's getting a bit hot out there and ending up in a ditch will only make things worse. So do you need help or can you keep driving?"

The driver gritted his teeth out of frustration, turning his eyes back on the road and monkeys behind the glass. "Clear view would be nice," he stated as tightening his grip around the wheel.

Phantom nodded her head. "Got it. And try to keep the car steady. My friend is on the roof"

She pushed her upper body out of the cab before the man had a chance to speak again. She used the movement to swing herself towards the windscreen and managed to land a kick on the nearest metal pest. The monkey led out a high picked scream that alarmed its friends, but they too were soon attacked by a glowing blast on their face.

More monkeys appeared and tried to jump on Phantom, forcing the halfa to return on her intangible state to avoid getting grounded by them. Realising they wouldn't be able to touch her directly, the little robots returned their main attention to terrorize the driver, shooting their lasers towards Phantom only when she had to solidify herself to touch one of them.

Phantom let out an annoyed growl when one of the lasers managed to scrape her cheek. These things learned fast. Almost like they had some kind of program that allowed them to calculate the opponent's weaknesses in some degree. And she swore that giggle was designed to drive everyone around them crazy. The only thing that could make those cursed monkeys even more annoying would be if Technus would get a chance to possess them.

Something exploded, and the driver lost the little control he had on the car. Phantom's head snapped towards the roof of the truck, but somehow Robin had managed to keep his balance. The boy must have some sort magnets on the bottom of his boots.

"Get the driver out!" Robin shouted at her and Phantom obeyed without word, diving through the windshield and closing her fists around the startled driver's jacked.

"Sorry buddy, this is our stop!" she announced before blasting the door off from its hinges and pulled the man out of the cab with her. Something landed on her back the moment she was out, too heavy and soft to be any of the robots. The bad thing was that it was more than enough to cause the halfa to lose control of her flight for the moment, sending her and the driver to fall on the nearby corn field. Still, the landing was much more controlled than free fall the jump from the moving car would have been for a normal.

"Your landing sucks" Robin announced from top of her as Phantom attempted to push herself up. The Boy Wonder had clearly chosen to use her as an escape from the crashing truck and therefore the one to fault from her losing control and knocking the poor driver, who was laying on the dirt, unconscious.

"Maybe because I wasn't prepared for 100 extra pounds landing on my back" she snapped back as she stood up, causing the younger teen to slide down to the ground. The fact how he managed to nail the landing perfectly and not fall on his butt irritated the halfa more than she liked to admit.

"Go check if we can still safe the cargo" Phantom parked an order to Robin, even though he was technically the one in charge of their group and kneeled down to check how the driver was doing. Unlike she had first assumed, the man was still partly conscious. Disoriented, but conscious never-the-less. She managed to urge him back on his feet and placed herself under the man's arm to support his shaking legs.

By the time she managed to emerge from the corn field back to the road the robot monkeys were already gone. And so was their third teammate.

 _"_ _Aqualad to Beta. We lost our cargo. Did you-"_

"It's gone," Robin let out a disappointed sigh while Phantom lowered the driver back to the ground. He was standing next to the crashed truck which back was broken apart -exploded from inside- but it seemed the boy hadn't been close enough to earn any damage from it. "And so is Superboy"

"Great… Just great" Phantom took her helmet off and threw it on the ground. This mission was turning out to be a complete catastrophe.

 _"_ _Aqualad to Superboy. Radio your position. We'll help you"_

 _"_ _I don't need help!"_ the Kryptonian's angry voice came through the comm loudly, his next words disappearing under incoherent noise that must be the wind before the line went silent with _click._

 _"_ _Superboy?"_ Aqualad's tried to call him again, without any results.

Phantom growled and jumped up in the air, turning to look at the direction of the trail of craters Superboy had left behind. He was already managed to disappear behind the hills on the distance and the frown on her face deepened.

"I think he ditched his comm" she heard Robin to guessed as he started to wander around the wreckage.

 _"_ _Super. Now we can't even track him."_ Kid joined in discussion by stating the obvious.

 _"_ _He's out of my telepathic range"_ Miss Martian informed them with apologetic tone. No one blamed her though. Team Alfa had managed to get fairly far away from their truck's location.

"I can still catch him and steal our cargo back" Phantom suggested "They couldn't have got that far."

 _"_ _Negative. We aren't slipping up more than we already have_." Aqualad ordered was serious and left little room to argue, making Phantom to clench her fists.

"So we're just going to let an angry five months old to run free on his own?" her words came out sharper than she had intended, but she was too pissed to care at the moment. The longer they kept talking, the harder it would be for her to track Superboy down. They needed to move.

 _"_ _We aren't abandoning Superboy. We regroup and think a new plan of action"_

 _"_ _This Professor Ivo, if he's alive, seems to be two steps ahead of us_." Miss Martian sighed, agreeing with Aqualad's words, continuing with much more unsure voice. _"M-maybe w-we should contact Red Tornado?"_

 _"_ _Tornado always tells us to handle things ourselves. And the mission can still success if we if we recover the parts before they're reassembled."_

 _"_ _Well, that's a great plan."_ KF cried out sarcastically and Phantom let out agreeing grunt. _"Expect for the part about us not knowing where to look!"_

"Maybe we do" Robin cut in their developing argument. When Phantom glanced down, she noticed how Robin had kneeled down next to the one of the monkeys, studying its broken metal corpse. She flew closer, stopping to hover behind the boy's shoulder as he attached a wire from his glove on the robot's back.

"As Phantom pointed out earlier, the decoy trucks weren't attacked at all." he explained while starting to play with his wrist computer. "So how did these monkeys know exactly which trucks to target?"

"I have a feeling that was a rhetorical question" Phantom stated as Robin's computer's hologram activated, and the boy let out victorious laugh.

"The parts have GBS!" he announced with wide grin. "The monkeys can track the signal, which means that I can track them with the one I captured. It looks like both sets of parts are converging on…" the Boy Wonder's eyes studied the data travelling next to the little map showing the location of the stolen android parts as they travelled onwards until he noticed something that made his smile fall. "…Gotham City"

 _"_ _That far south?"_ Aqualad asked, clearly surprised of the information Robin had managed to get. _"Megan and I won't get there anytime soon. I'm sending Kid on ahead to meet you. Aqualad out"_

"Right" Phantom nodded her head as she floated back higher on the air trying to find where they had left Robin's bike. "Do you think your ride survived from that crash?"

"We'll see" Robin stood up and threw the monkey over his shoulder, before pressing a button on his glove. Soon enough, they were able to see single light to appear on the distance and the sound of the motorbike reached their ears. The Robin let out a tired sigh "This mission is definitely a disaster, heavy on the dis."

"Hey. At least we now know for sure there is nothing ghost related in this fiasco. They avoid Gotham even more than humans do." Dani tried to cheer him up a bit. She understood why the parts' destination was upsetting him, after all if the android was sent free in Gotham City there would be huge casualties for sure. Besides, what kind of hero wanted to bring damage to the city they had sworn to protect.

Robin lifted his brows behind the sunglasses he had been wearing under his helmet. "And why is that?"

"Too many cults" was her simply answer and the Ghost Girl couldn't but shutter "Trust me with this. Ghosts and cults do not mix. At all."

That got a small smile out of the boy. "I take that as you have some personal experience?"

"Oh thank goodness, no" Dani let out a relieved groan, hoping she hadn't just jinxed herself "But I know people who had managed to get themselves summoned in the past. Including my Dad."

"Now you are just making things up" Robin said, laughter returning in his voice and eyes. By then his bike had already reached them and the boy had started to open his jacked, revealing the familiar uniform under it.

"You wish," Dani shook her head to the memory. Danny disappearing in the middle of the ghost hunt had been interesting scare on its own but getting him back from some 16th century cult had been a completely different mess.

"Want to hear about it on the way to Gotham?"

"Sure." Robin said as he there his cape back on his shoulder. "I'll probably keep me from overthinking every possible way how this plan can go horribly wrong."

His words made her wonder if it had been smarter plan to just call to Red Tornado for help…

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By the time Kid Flash caught two of them, sun had already disappeared behind the horizon and Robin's bike had managed to pass the Gotham's city limit. Phantom herself was flying on the edge of the road, her civilian clothes stored inside the locker under Robin's seat and her aura in its full glow. She made sure to stay next to the motorbike all the time as her teammate continued to track the parts down.

"So you changed too" Robin commented as Kid slowed his running at the speed of the motorbike.

"You kidding?" the redhead let out a sound of mock disgust "I feel naked in civvies. You still tracking the parts?"

Robin nodded his head slightly, his attention returning on the screen in front of him. "They were heading through Gotham, but they veered"

"Which probably means that Superboy caught them and is in trouble" Phantom pointed out, her worry expressing itself as frustration.

"Wait." Robin said, too surprised by his own revelation to pay attention on Phantom's comment "Guys, they're at my school."

"Really?!" Kid and Phantom asked with wide eyes, the latter of two moving closer to see the screen herself.

"Seriously? You go Gotham Academy? Isn't that rich brats only?"

"Hey!" Robin gave the girl half offended glare "You can get in with scholarship too."

"You're so one of the rich brats" the halfa cackled. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen it sooner. Of course Batman and Robin were rich people. It made so much more sense than assuming that Batman just happened to have some really good connections and allies who kept giving him all that high-tech stuff for free.

"She isn't exactly wrong, you know" Kid pointed out with grin of his own, earning hissed _Shut up_ and annoyed glare from the Boy Wonder, but the damage was already done.

"Wait…" Dani flipped on her side, her fingers pointing at the speedster "Kid knows who you are?" she asked with disbelief, her finger moving from the redhead to the younger boy. "I call BS"

"Well, duh" Wally's grin turned in something much smugger as he looked at the halfa over their common, now suffering, friend. "Best friends, remember?"

"Why would Robin trust you with his secret identity? You can barely hide your own."

"Okay, first of all, ouch. Secondly-"

"KF knows, end of story!" Robin shouted out, "Now, can we please focus on the mission."

Dani huffed and turned back on her normal flying position. "Fine." She would let it go, for now. But the boys were better to be extra careful now on. Because she now knew that Wally knew Robin's secret, and oh boy. She was so going to keep her ears open for slip up that the speedster would surely have.

They reached the school soon after end of their little argument, finding one of its large windows broken and very telling crashing sounds coming from inside.

"Great," Kid Flash stated as he halted to stop next to Robin's bike. "Wanna bet that the android is back in one piece?"

"Definitely" Robin agreed, checking something from his wrist computer. "Hey, Dee. Think you can get us in?"

"Depends. Is the Anti-ghost system on?" she asked in return, remembering how the academy was one of the few schools outside Amity Park having one installed, and she really didn't want to be at the wrong end of the target practice tonight.

Rich Gotham people were surely super paranoid.

"Not unless someone activated it in the principal's office." Robin assured at the same moment as loud crash was heard from inside.

"Then lets hurry." Phantom grabbed hold on the two boys' shoulder and pulled them with her as she flew through the wall.

"They are in the gym" Robin announced immediately after the three of them had once again solid, pointing towards the hallway on their right. "And try not to wreck the place"

"First time I heard someone say that about the school" KF joked before speeding off to the given direction. Phantom flew after him, Robin once again on her arms, paying little attention to the things like walls and doors on her way.

The sight greeting them in the gym crushed the final hopes of them reaching the parts before the android was put back together.

Kid speed to their side from the other side of the room, carrying beaten up Superboy with him. Their run-away teammate seemed to be mostly okay, his ego probably being the thing that had wounded the most, allowing the halfa relax ever so little.

It didn't mean she wouldn't give the boy lecture of lifetime the moment all of them were safely back in the cave.

Robin jumped down from Phantom's carry, throwing one of his explosive discs towards the android, aiming at its head.

" **Martian Manhunter** " the android said with its emotionless voice and turned intangible causing the explosive to hit the wall behind it without causing any damage. " **Access: Red Tornado** " the android continued, and the familiar whirlwind started to form around its body. As it flew towards the young heroes, Phantom dived down under the floor, avoiding being carried away by the tornado.

The others weren't as lucky and by time Phantom popped her head back on the surface, she could see her teammates lying all around the gym, trying to recover from the impact on the floor.

" **Access: Captain Atom** " the android's voice came from her right and Phantom turned to witness how the robot lifted his arm to fire an energy blast towards Kid Flash.

Phantom shot towards the android, hitting its arm with all her strength, causing its aim to sift just enough for it to hit the wall behind instead of her friend on the floor. Unfortunately to the Ghost Girl, the little trick had left her open for attack and the android managed to grab hold on her wrists.

" **Access: Phantom** "

"Oh, Cheese Logs" Phantom cursed before a strong ecto-blast hit her straight on the stomach, sending her hurling to the other side of the room. The hit left her too disoriented to realise where she was heading, and she landed on the benches with high enough force to break the wooden parts under her.

The halfa pushed herself on the sitting position, letting out a small pained hiss. After hit like that the blast area would feel more than shore for a while but at least her suit had protected her skin from the burns.

Something landed on the benches below her, and Phantom had barely time to recognize that something as Superboy before she noticed a stretched arm falling towards there where they were sitting. Letting out a startled yelp, Phantom dived away under it, letting herself roll in the area behind the benches.

Phantom gritted her teeth, they needed a better plan than this one and fast. Fighting the android was like going against all their mentors at once and it didn't even have any of their weaknesses. But the android was still what it was, and non-living object. If she managed to land a strong enough blast on it, then maybe-

Her line of thought was cut short when Kid's pained scream cut the air. Cold feeling twisting in her stomach, Phantom abandoned her cower to rush to her teammate's help. She was too slow though and Kid had managed to get himself away from the android and now running through the gym as bright coloured blur, searching an opening to strike.

" **Access: Black Canary** " this time, the android used one of the heroines moves to flip the charging Superboy over its shoulder on the benches at the opposite side of the room.

With angry battle cry, Phantom send a large ecto-blast towards the android's head, but the machine was once again prepared.

" **Access: Flash** " and suddenly it was moving, way too fast for Phantom to land a single hit from this far away. She had no other choice but get closer.

Taking advance of the distraction Phantom was offering, Robin threw more batarangs towards the android. It managed to duck them, not bothering to use Martian Manhunter's density sifting to avoid the attack.

" **Superman** " its eyes started to glow red, the warning that made the halfa drop down between the android and Robin, barely managing to create a shield to protect herself from the heat vision blast.

"I've heard people having a fiery gaze, but this is getting ridiculous" she shot angry glares towards the android through her green shield, waiting it to do its next move.

"Oh, yawn." a voice come from somewhere her upper right and Phantom's eyes darted towards a small man sitting on upper benches whose presence she had somehow managed to miss this whole time. "Normally Amazo would study and mimic your abilities during the battle, but what's the point? You're all such poor copies of the originals."

Yep, that's Ivo, alight. Alive and kicking. Still as annoyingly narcissistic as always.

It didn't mean that his poor copy comment hadn't poked the nerve any less.

And she wasn't the only one.

"So everyone keeps saying" she heard Superboy growl under his breath, his next words growing in full roar "It makes me angry!"

Phantom let out pained sigh. There they go again.

But to her surprise, Superboy didn't attack on Amazo. Instead he leaped over the android towards its creator and monkey robots sitting next to him. The mad scientist let out startled yelp, managing to jump away under the incoming attack and started to run down the benches as fast as he could.

"Want to see me channel that anger?!"

Well wasn't this getting interesting.

"Great. He's gone ballistic again" she heard Kid to speak behind her back.

"Maybe not," Robin suggested with knowing voice as Superboy leaped once again towards the little man.

"Amazo, protect your master. Priority alpha" Ivo squealed with nervous voice, once again managing to avoid being crushed by Superboy, but only barely.

 **"** **Captain Atom"** the android turned away from Phantom, hitting the Kryptonian teen with another energy blast.

"That was rude" Phantom jumped up to kick Amazo's head, her foot glowing green. It wasn't her strongest attack, but enough to cause the android to lose its balance for the second.

"Anyone wants to play keep away?" Robin laughed as he rushed towards Ivo whose little robots were trying to help him to escape and kicked the man back on the floor.

"Oh! Me, me!" Kid Flash called back like over eager 5-year-old while Phantom rolled away from the way of the android's hits.

" **Access: Superman** " Amazo hit the floor with its super strength boosted feet, creating a shock wave that send the speedster flying before he had a chance to reach Ivo.

" **Martian Manhunter** " the android turned once again almost transparent to avoid getting hit by the Robin's throwing knife. And it seemed to be the moment Superboy had been waiting.

The boy jumped down in front of the android and charged, sending his fist towards Amazo's head that was yet to turn back to tangible. This was enough to trick a complete opposite defensive mechanism in the android.

" **Superman** " Amazo returned in his solid form the moment Superboy's hand went through its head, causing his arm to get stuck inside. The sparks started to fly almost immediately, and it didn't take long till the whole head exploded, sending Superboy fly to the floor.

The teens followed in silence how Amazo's now headless body fell on the floor with loud thud.

"Clever" Dani sang, breaking the shocked silence, causing Robin to snap out of his surprised trans and bolt towards the android.

"Help me dissemble him. Now!" the Boy Wonder barked the hurried order.

"Dude, the guy has no head" Kid pointed out as he moved next to Superboy, who was holding his own arm.

"Don't take any chances" Aqualad and Miss Martian rushed in the room through the door, finally reaching their other teammates.

"Superboy! Are you alright?" M'gann asked rushing to the boy's side and helping him to stand up.

"I'm fine" he assured with small smile then glanced towards Robin "Feeling the aster." The younger boy beamed back at him.

"Sorry, guys. You missed all the fun" Phantom joked half-heartedly as she landed to stand next to Superboy. "Give me your arm"

The Kryptonian gave her questioning look and made no attempts to do as she had said.

"Look" Dani pointed the darker spots on the boy's skin making M'gann to gasp a little when she saw them as well. "You literally have half of that android's head inside your arm. The only way to get them out is either through surgery done by kryptonite blade" she stopped to let her words to sink in "Or you can let me phase them through. It's your choice"

Superboy stared at his arm, probably only now seeing the pieces of metal and wires poking out of his skin. Dani herself had gotten metal bits stuck inside her body multiple times while practising how to short circuit robots and machines with intangibility, so it didn't come as surprise to her that something like this had happened in the situation where Superboy had no control of the permeability of the object. If he hadn't been Kryptonian the boy's arm would probably be dead or badly damaged from the little stunt he had decided to perform.

Finally, Superboy gave up and offered his arm to the halfa. Dani didn't say anything, just gave him a victorious grin and took his hand in her own, closing her eyes to concentrate. Turning only certain things intangible was always more challenging than doing it to the whole object, but her dad had made sure she practised it. It came handy in situations like these.

Soon Dani could hear how pieces of metal dropped on the floor between them with loud clatter, and she opened her eyes to study if she had missed anything.

"I think that was all of them, but we still should x-ray your arm when we get back to the cave" she said, releasing hold from his hand. "Does it feel normal"

"I think so." Superboy said frowning a little as he moved his hand to test it "A bit shore"

Dani let out a relieved sigh "Good" she said with blank face then smacked the back of his head with hand that was glowing green from the charging ecto-blast.

"Hey!" Superboy shouted angrily and swung his arm but Dani was already floated out of his immediate reach.

"That was for not following direct orders and running away after dangerous villain like some spoiled bratty baby! And don't get me even started-"

Unnoticed by Dani, the three other boys shared a knowing look between each other as the halfa continued her ranting to the puzzled looking Kryptonian. The two younger ones even started snickering and muttering word "mama bear" under their breath.

Who knows how long her lecture would have continued if Wally hadn't pointed out that Ivo had managed to get away.

* * *

_Mount Justice  
August 4, 01:06 EDT_

Just like with Twister fiasco, cleaning the mess they had created and contacting the League had taken more than enough hours and by the time they got back to the cave to give Batman their full report, everyone was tired and ready to hit the showers.

Wally especially was crankier than usual; the STAR Labs' people hadn't let him to keep any of the pieces Dani had phased out from Superboy's arm as souvenir and the arrow Robin had found from the scene wasn't lifting his mood at all.

"The Amazo Android is in pieces again," Aqualad finished their report while the rest of them stood around him, waiting patiently and ready to answer any questions the Leaguers might have for them. "Safely being analysed at the two separated STAR Labs. But Ivo escaped, and since he originated the tech, he's arguably more dangerous than the android."

Canary nodded her head, "Capturing the professor will be a League priority." she assured them.

"But we understand your mission encountered" Martian Manhunter continued, crossing his arms "other complications"

The pointed look the man gave was clearly directed towards Superboy, leading the others as well look at their teammate, who soon turned his head away with slightly pouting face.

"It won't happen again," Dani promised, nudging the boy next to her "Right, Superboy?"

"…Yeah" he said with quiet but clear voice and Dani nodded her head in approve.

"Complications come with the job" Batman reminded as he stepped closer. "Your ability to handle them has impressed the League."

The teens looked each other with surprised yet wide smiles. Impressing the League wasn't a simple task and Dani especially could not but glance towards her dad who was standing in the back ground, looking at her with amused yet proud expression.

"The whole League?" Superboy asked hopefully, and Danny's smile fell, and he looked away in what Dani could swear to be shame and frustration.

"Given time, yes. Kryptonian, as you know, have very hard heads." Batman assured, causing the Phantom to snort.

"That's probably the biggest understatement I've ever heard" he said sarcastically, earning glare from the Bat and small, maybe even amused smile from Superboy.

"Of course, there is no shame in asking for help. That's why the League exists, because there are some problems even we can't handle individually."

"Please," Robin suddenly snapped "If we'd never get the chance to ask." he accused, reaching to pull an arrow from his belt, giving it to Batman while the older other heroes moved closer to study it. "Look familiar? You were following us! Babysitting!"

Batman gave the arrow to Green Arrow who gave the arrowhead only short look before pulling one of his own arrows from the quiver to compare them.

"We didn't follow you." Batman stated simply, the difference between GA's and the arrow that had saved Kid being crushed in the android's deadly embrace now clear to everyone in the present.

"And that's not your arrow," Robin noted, sounding almost confused before the wide grin speared on his face, "But that means-"

"Speedy!" Kid finished his sentence with equally wide smirk.

Dani let out a gleeful laugh "Ha! I knew he was too big softie just to leave us"

"He has our backs" Kaldur agreed with pleased smile.

Wally rushed to snatch the arrow from Ollie's hand claiming it as his newest souvenir as the other three original sidekicks circled around him, too excited about their friend changing his mind to notice the look shared between the adults.

When Dani sifted her attention from their small celebration, she noticed how Superboy was currently talking with Canary and her father, the older halfa currently explaining something to the boy that was leaving Superboy to look surprised yet pleased. Leaving her own conservation, Dani floated closer hoping to hear what they were talking about, but the moment Danny caught sight of her, he had already finished.

"Read to go home?" Danny asked, and Dani nodded her head, deciding to ask questions only after they were back in Amity Park. He turned to look back at Superboy and smiled at him. "Think about what I said, okay?"

The younger man nodded his head looking at Dani as if asking her opinion, but the girl only shrugged and gave him amused smile. Danny patted the boy's shoulder one more time "You did great work today."

Dani was pretty sure she had never seen wider smile on Superboy's face than the one he now had.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Amity Park  
August 4, 04:28_

Dani sat on the edge of her home's roof, gazing at the stars above her with blank expression. Her dark hair was open, moving lazily among the wind occasionally blowing wild strands over her eyes, but the girl didn't seem to mind. One of her hands was swapped around her knee while the other one was holding her phone, the fingers locked around the device just enough to keep it from falling down to the pavement below her.

"I thought you would already be on bed." her dad spoke when the man appeared through the door leading to roof without bothering to open it. "It was a long day"

"Yeah," Dani agreed with quiet voice, her gaze never leaving the stars. "Couldn't sleep"

She could hear Danny to move towards her, his bare feet hitting the roof with soft patting sounds and soon the man lowered himself to sit next to her.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. "Not that I blame you for coming to enjoy this beautiful sight, but you are lacking that special star gazing smile of yours"

The teen snorted without any real humour in it. "I don't have star gazing smile"

"Of course you have!" Danny teased, reaching to tickle her cheekbone. "It's the one when you have those little sparks in your eyes"

"Daa'ad" Dani whined with a smile and slapped his hand away, glaring him playfully "Stop it"

The older halfa just chuckled, letting his arm fall, but soon the more serious and worried look returned.

"Dani, seriously. What's wrong?"

The teen hero sighed, returning to stare at the sky above them.

"Roy still won't answer to my calls or messages" she finally explained weakly. "I thought now that he decided to follow us during that mission, he would talk to me again, but…"

"Oh, Dani" Danny pulled his daughter in one armed hug, letting the girl lean her head against his shoulder.

"It wasn't his arrow, was it?" she asked with small voice, already knowing the answer she would get

Her father exhaled sadly "…No" he admitted. "It belongs to a girl from Gotham. Around your age, we think" Danny hugged her little tighter and tried to give her an encouraging smirk. "And don't worry about Roy. He's trying his own wings out and probably thinking that asking for help will make him look like failure or something stupid like that. I'm sure you will go through the same phase eventually."

"Actually, please don't do that" Danny added after thinking his words for a second. "I don't want to turn into Ollie. He has been terrible company the past month."

"Oh, really?" Dani asked, lifting her brows with sceptical interest.

"Yeah, really, really!" Danny threw his arms up in the air out of frustration. "Seriously, yesterday was the first time anyone managed to get him to leave his apartment to do other things than patrols. It's almost like he's some sort teen girl getting over from his first break up. I swear, he must be spending all his days eating ice cream and watching some cheap teen dramas, or something."

Dani could not but laugh to Danny's little rant. "As teen girl, I'm very offended by that comparison." she joked.

"Naah," the man winked at her "Your teen hormones aren't even kicked in yet. You're still just my baby"

Deciding to mess with her dad a little, Dani hit her hand over her chest in mock offence and exclaimed. "Excuse me?! Are you implying that I don't look like a woman?!"

Danny stared her for a moment "What? How did you even-" he managed to choke out before the two of them broke to laugh waters in their eyes. Honestly, they were lucky that none of their neighbours didn't wake up or started to shout them about how normal people wanted to sleep. Or perhaps they had already got used to the loud weirdness of the Fenton family.

On their time, the two hybrids calmed down and Dani started to wipe tears out of her eyes.

"Thanks, Dad" she told him with genuine smile. "I needed that."

"Any time" Danny promised, playfully tapping the girl's nose, which only lead to couple hits long mock fist fight that ended when Danny managed capture hold on both of her wrists. They chuckled, and Danny released his hold then seemed to remember something.

"Actually, there is one more thing I need to talk you about." he admitted, then hurried to add "But it can wait till the morning."

"You really think I can sleep after you said something like that?" the teen deadpanned and crossed her arms, waiting her father to continue.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. "Look it's nothing important. Bruce and I just had a talk with Clark this evening and I might have said something so…" The older hero took a deep breath and lifted his chin, looking as if he had done something forbidden.

"How badly are you against the idea of letting Superboy join on our patrols?"

Oh, Fudge Buckets.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny fact:in YJ wiki, Superboy is count as a souvenir.
> 
> Okay, so I have a slightly bad news. Due the intensive couple months, I have run out of my "buffer chapter". When starting this story I had three-four chapters finished before posting anything so I would I would be able to upload the next chapter once a month and avoid the long hiatuses my earlier project suffered couple times.
> 
> Saddly, life is life and my plan didn't work as hoped.
> 
> The point is... There is a change that I might not be able to keep up my once a month schedule as well as before. I'll try my best but we'll see what happens.
> 
> Now, to answer some (FF.net) questions I couldn't aswer via PM:
> 
> Guest: We'll see if Dani's texts to Roy are going to effect the plot ;D And about the M'gann being a better "Team Mom". It's true that M'gann is more motherly, but Dani is still (physically) oldest member of the Team. Also, since many Tv-shows often picture babysitting as something only trusted, responsible young adults are allowed to do, I would imagine M'gann now sees Dani much more mature than she truly is.  
> Robin and KF though... They aren't going to leave Dani alone for a very long time after they learn she is actually 8.
> 
> Dday: Oh, ghost-baby Klarion would be a total nightmare xD Saddly he isn't our MK, but thank you for giving me a perfect idea for Dani's method for a timeouts. She would totally do something like that.
> 
> Which reminds me...
> 
> Hint (*checks the number*) 7: I promised to give a better hints from now on so... Hmm... (*30min search break later*) Huh... I didn't know that one.
> 
> Okay now for real.
> 
> Hint 7: MK has been part of the Injustice League (in comics and before the New 52) though this isn't MK's main group.
> 
> Also, if you are lazy and want to cheat. One person in AO3 has managed to shorten the list of characters in only 2 characters.


	8. Inwhile in Metropolis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never start work with your childhood idols. 
> 
> aka
> 
> Danny is very disapointed in Clark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra "mini story"
> 
> Notice that I posted two chapters this time!!

_Metropolis_  
_August 3, 21:18_

When Bruce called up their little meeting, Danny hadn’t expected him to let Clark to decide the place. In hind sight, it was pretty obvious why the billionaire had chosen to do so; Clark would be easier to handle in an environment he felt safe and had complete control over. The only downside had been that the Kryptonian had led them to his favourite Dinner. As civilians. Where every noisy eavesdropper could hear what they were talking about, forcing them all to dance around the subject and use incomplete sentences to express their thoughts.

Danny had funny feeling that was exactly what Superman had wanted.

“Apple pie” Clark told his order to the waiter, who was the most likely the owner of the place judged by the nametag taped on his chest.

“Blueberry cheesecake”

“The devil’s food” Bruce finished, giving Bibbo both his and Danny’s menus with polite smile. The tired looking man nodded his head and walked away without saying a word. He wasn’t acting exactly rude, but something was telling Danny that he wasn’t happy to have journalist and two known business men at his dinner this close to the closing time.

“Something tells me this isn’t about desserts” Clark started before their waiter was out of the hearing range, with slight Kansas accent that he was grown up to use.

“This is an intervention” Danny stated dryly, crossing his arms and causing the reporter to lift his brow. Danny felt something to kick his leg, a silent warning from the man next to him for halfa to keep his mouth shut. They had agreed to let Bruce to do most of the talking, the topic being a bit too close to the home for the youngest of the group.

“The boy needs you” Bruce explained the younger man’s words and Clark flinched visibly.

“No. He needs you. He needs Red” Clark sounded more like someone who was trying to convince himself than the others, before turning his gaze away. “I’m just a constant reminder of what he’s not.”

“Sorry, Clark, but you’re dead wrong.” Bruce told the man, his serious Batman persona leaking through his more casual civilian act that caused the Man of Steel to give the man his whole attention. Danny nodded his head in agreement, his lips pressed in thin line, so he wouldn’t start lecturing his former idol then and there.

“Look, I know he troubles you, but he’s here.” Bruce continued, the Bat’s authority once again gone. “You have to get over the how and why. Trust me and Daniel on this. This boy needs his father.”

“I’m not his father,” Clark stoop up, taking his ridiculously old-fashioned hat with him and was already turned his head towards the kitchen when Danny spoke up.

“If that was true, Ellie wouldn’t be my daughter either” his words were cold, but his tone wasn’t why Superman had frozen. “Look,” Danny used the fingers from his left hand to rub his eyes, adopting much softer voice as he continued, but the anger was still there. “No one is expecting you to figure things out overnight or let him move in with you immediately.” the halfa gave his friend something close to sympathetic look.  “I know from experience that things like these take time. But nothing can happen unless you talk to him.”

Clark just stoop there for couple seconds, progressing Danny’s words, before speaking to the waiter in the kitchen.

“I’ll take that pie to go”

It took all Danny’s willpower not to hit his own head against the table as the Kryptonian walked away. It didn’t mean though that he wouldn’t rub some salt in the wound.

“Just remember that 15-year-old handled a surprise kid better than you did” he called after him, purposely using loud enough voice for those without super hearing to hear him if they were paying any attention to their surroundings. Meaning everyone in the dinner had probably heard it.

Good. Let them talk.

The moment Clark had walked out from the dinner with his pie, Danny let out a tired sigh and started to rub his temples, paying vague attention how Bruce moved to sit on the seat on the other side of the table that had housed the larger reporter only moments earlier.

“I’m so going to kick his ass during the next training simulation”

“Starting a rumour was completely unnecessary” was only thing Bruce gave him as an answer, and Danny just knew he was giving him the look. “And he’s not the only one who has been avoiding the boy”

“I know, I know” Danny groaned, giving the older man sheepish smile “I’m a hypocrite, aren’t I?”

“You have already done more than Clark. Even though you’re keeping your distance” he admitted “But it would be good for him to know he has a friend who has gone through the same problems he’s currently facing.”

“It’s Dani’s decision to make, not mine” Danny reminded him, knowing very well how shore topic her origins were to his daughter. He had already stepped over his boundaries by revealing the truth to Superman, but the man had needed to know he wasn’t the first one who had been cloned against his will. Bruce gave him a deadpan look, leading Danny to sigh again. “I’ll talk her about it…”

“Good” Bruce said, then switched to his Wayne smile and Danny didn’t need to turn his head to know their desserts were coming.

“Do you think they are doing fine?” Danny asked after they had been left alone, Bruce knowing very well who they were.

“It’s a simple escort mission. It’s very unlikely they’ll face any complications”

 Smirking Danny pointed the older man with his spoon. “In the other words. You’re just trying to please John, Barry and I after you send our kids on the island full of crazy cultists.”

Bruce didn’t answer to his accusation, ignoring the younger man in favour of taking the first bite from his chocolate treat and the halfa couldn’t but chuckle.

Who would imagine that there would be a day when the feared Batman would give in and actually attempt to bribe himself back to his teammates' good sides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why Danny wanted Blueberry Cheesecake, you ask?
> 
> Because Booberry is every ghosts' favourite flavour xD
> 
> Aaaand I couldn't find any cakes that could be turned into halfa joke...


End file.
